Google Ads negative keywords: how to stop paying for the wrong searches

A keyword is not a search. When you buy “plumber leeds”, Google also shows your ad on queries it considers close: “cheap plumber leeds”, “become a plumber leeds”, “plumber leeds reviews”. The broader the match, the wider the gap, and broad match — the default for new campaigns — lets Google interpret intent on your behalf.

The search terms report shows what people actually typed before clicking. It is the most useful screen in the account, and the least opened. It does not show everything: since 2020, Google hides part of the rarer queries, grouped into a single line with no detail. What you read there is a floor, never the full picture of what you pay for.

Negative keywords act on that visible part. They do not cut your budget: they move it from searches that bring nothing to searches that bring enquiries.

A negative keyword does not behave like a positive one, and that is the source of most mistakes. Above all, it does not cover close variants. Excluding “course” blocks neither “courses” nor a mistyped “corse”. Every plural and every common typo has to be added separately.

• Negative broad match — blocks any search that contains ALL the words, in any order. “plumber course” excludes “course for plumbers”, but not “electrician course”.
• Negative phrase match — blocks searches that contain these words in this order, with or without other words around them. “job vacancy” excludes “job vacancy plumber leeds”.
• Negative exact match — blocks only the identical search, with no extra words. It is the most cautious move: it removes one proven query and nothing else.

The level matters as much as the word. An exclusion set too high cuts campaigns that never asked for it; too low, and the same search keeps costing elsewhere.

• The ad group — to route a search to the right group when two groups in the same campaign compete for it.
• The campaign — the default level: the search cost money in this campaign, so it leaves this campaign.
• The shared list — for exclusions that hold everywhere — job searches, free content — applied to the campaigns you choose.
• The account — for what must never trigger any ad, Performance Max included. Keep it for certainties.

A search seen three times proves nothing. Before excluding, you need enough volume to conclude: SaveAds judges none below 15 clicks, because below that you are not measuring a trend, you are measuring chance. The second test is cost: a search with no conversion that has already spent three times what an enquiry is worth to you has had its chance.

The third test is the one people forget: has the search ever converted, over 30 or 90 days, in this campaign or another? A phone call counts as a conversion, even when Google did not record it. A search that made the phone ring once is not excluded on the strength of a quiet week.

Finally, a search that is plainly off-topic — your trade searched as a job, a product you do not sell — can go sooner, because its intent is readable without waiting for the numbers.

Every trade has its own, but five families run through almost every account we read.

• Jobs and training — “salary”, “apprenticeship”, “training”, “qualification”: the clicker wants to do your job, not buy it.
• Free and do-it-yourself — “free”, “tutorial”, “diy”, “second hand”: someone trying to manage without you.
• Pure information — “definition”, “wikipedia”, “what is”: curiosity, not a need with a date.
• Areas you do not serve — towns where you do not work, slipped into the query despite location targeting.
• Products you do not sell — a brand, a range or a neighbouring service that people associate with yours.

A badly placed exclusion is invisible: spend goes down, the account looks healthier, and the missing calls leave no trace in the report.

• Excluding buying intent — “price”, “quote”, “emergency”, “broken” or “near me” look like noise in a table; they are buyers.
• Excluding a word you buy — a negative that contains your own keyword blocks it without warning, and Google merely flags the conflict.
• A one-word broad negative — “not” or “without” look harmless and shut out hundreds of useful searches.
• Copying another account’s list — a thousand-word list found online also excludes what your customers type.
• Excluding everywhere what wastes here — a search wasted for a repair campaign can be the best one in an installation campaign.

Excluding in exact match is safe, but endless: “cheap portable air conditioner” goes, and “second hand portable air conditioner” arrives the following week. When the same word keeps coming back in several wasted searches, that word is what you exclude, in phrase match: every search that contains it is blocked, today and tomorrow.

It is a broader move, so it is more guarded. SaveAds only proposes a word if it appears in at least two searches already judged worth excluding, if those carry at least two thirds of the clicks of all searches that contain it, if no keyword you buy and no search that converted contains it, and if it does not express buying intent. The proposal always waits for your approval.

SaveAds reads the search terms of your Google Ads account every day, campaign by campaign, and applies these rules before proposing anything. Each proposal is a card: the searches involved, their clicks, what they cost, and the button that adds the exclusion to the campaign that paid.

If you turn on the autopilot, exact-match exclusions are among the changes it can make on its own, under the same thresholds. Every exclusion is logged and can be removed in one click, and its effect is reviewed seven days later.