Google Ads Negative Keywords: What Your Search Terms Hide

What are Google Ads negative keywords? They are the words you tell Google Ads not to show your ads for. In Google’s words, negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns and help you focus on only the keywords that matter to your customers. To find them, Google points you to the search terms report, the list of real searches that triggered your ads. The catch is that the report is not the whole list. Google omits some search terms that don’t have enough query activity from the report, to keep with its standards on data privacy.

That missing part can be large. In two accounts we have run or reviewed, the searches Google listed covered between 34.6% and 60.3% of ad spend in the periods we checked. A negative keyword list built only from that report is built on part of the picture, and a negative that looks safe there can still block searches that bring in leads.

This guide covers how negative keywords work and how each match type blocks a search, how much of your spend the search terms report shows, how to sort the spend that booked nothing, how to test a negative before you add it, and where negatives apply. For what a click and a lead cost by industry, see our Google Ads benchmarks.

How Google Ads Negative Keywords Work

A negative keyword is a rule, not a single search: it blocks every search that matches it, including searches you have never seen. Two things make it behave differently from the keywords you bid on. First, negative keywords won’t match to close variants or other expansions. Google’s example is that the negative broad match keyword flowers blocks a search for red flowers but not a search for red flower. So you add singular and plural forms and synonyms yourself. Google says casing and misspellings are handled for you, but its search terms insights page says that when excluded terms show up there, it may be because your ads appeared for misspellings that aren’t included in your negative keywords list. To be safe, add any misspelling you see in your search terms too. Second, the match type decides how far the rule reaches:

• Negative broad match is the default. Your ad won’t show if the search contains all of the negative keyword’s words, even in a different order, but it may still show when the search contains only some of them.
• Negative phrase match blocks a search that contains all of the words in the same order, even with extra words around them.
• Negative exact match blocks only a search with the same words, in the same order, with no extra words.

Google’s own example shows the difference. Here is what the negative keyword running shoes does to five searches under each match type.

Source: the running shoes example on Google’s About negative keywords page, listed in the Sources at the end. “Ad can show” means the negative keyword does not block that search.

Read the table from the bottom up. Only the search running shoes is blocked by all three types, and the singular running shoe gets past every one of them, which is the close variant rule at work. Exact match is the narrowest, and it is what you get when you add a negative straight from the report: negative keywords added to a Search campaign from the search terms report are added as negative exact match by default, unless you change the match type.

Two more cautions from Google’s pages apply to every negative. Make sure your negative keywords don’t overlap with your regular keywords, because that will cause your ad not to show. And if you use too many negative keywords, your ads might reach fewer customers. Negatives do the most work alongside broad match, which is the default for the keywords you bid on. With broad match, ads may show on searches that are related to your keyword, which can include searches that don’t contain the direct meaning of your keywords.

What Your Search Terms Report Hides

Google is clear about what the search terms report covers. The search terms report is a list of search terms that a significant number of people have used, and that resulted in your ad being shown. Searches with too little activity are left out, as noted above.

How much was left out differed between the two accounts we checked. In a tree service account we manage, the search terms Google listed covered 34.6% of spend from September 1 to 28, 2026, and 40.5% of spend in August 2026. In a home-services installation company’s account, they covered 60.3% of spend from June 1 to August 29, 2026. Put the other way, 39.7% to 65.4% of the spend in those periods went to searches the report did not list.

Two things follow for negative keywords. The searches you can see are the common ones, so they may not look like the rest. And a phrase or broad negative also applies to every search you cannot see, so you cannot check all of its effects in the report. Search terms insights help with the second problem. Google says its search categories take all search terms into account, including those not exposed in the search terms report due to privacy reasons, and each category shows clicks, conversions and other metrics. Searches with lower spend are grouped together as other search terms. You find the insights under Insights in the Campaigns menu.

How to check how much of your spend the report lists

1. In Google Ads, select Campaigns, then go to Search terms in the Insights and reports menu.
2. Pick a full month and download the report for your Search campaigns, then add up the Cost column for the search term rows.
3. Compare that total with the cost of the same campaigns for the same dates.
4. The difference is what you paid for searches the report did not list.

Sort the Spend That Booked Nothing Before You Add Negatives

Spend on searches with no conversions looks like a job for negative keywords. In the installation company’s account, most of it was not. Of the $37,625 spent on listed searches from June 1 to August 29, 2026, $11,705 (31%) produced no conversions. Only about $457 of that was junk, such as job seekers, do-it-yourself searches and product brands. Most of the rest was the right kind of search that did not convert, so more negative keywords were not the fix.

So we sort that spend into three piles before we block anything:

• Searches you never wanted, such as job seekers, do-it-yourself searches and services you do not offer. These are what negative keywords are for.
• Searches from outside your service area. A negative keyword cannot tell where a person is searching from; the location setting can. By default, location targeting includes both physical locations and locations of interest, and Google says to consider the Presence option when you only want to reach people in specific locations, not people elsewhere who are interested in your product or service.
• The right searches that did not book. Blocking these cuts the searches your customers use. Look at the page they land on, how calls are answered and what each lead costs. If they bring clicks but few calls, our guide to Google Ads clicks but no calls walks through the checks.

Some searches never book, whatever the volume. Our rule is negative keywords from day one for searches that never book: jobs, schools, how-to and home remedies. Anything less clear-cut should wait until it has spent at least what a lead should cost with nothing to show for it, and then go through the three piles. For a trade example of a day-one list, see our guide to Google Ads for tree service companies.

Test Every Negative Keyword Before You Add It

Google names the risk itself. On its Performance Max pages, it says that in some cases, adding negative keywords can unexpectedly limit your reach and result in missed opportunities for valuable conversions. For Performance Max, Google offers a preview of the predicted impact before you add a negative, for up to 10 keywords at a time. Google says this prediction is only available for Performance Max campaigns for now, so for a Search campaign, you run the test yourself.

Here is why the test matters. When we drafted negative keywords for an immigration law firm, three of the phrase negatives each came from one search that had cost money in an ad group without bringing a lead. Before adding them, we tested each one against the account’s search terms report for August 2026. As phrase negatives, each would also have blocked longer searches that contained the same words in the same order, and those searches had brought in 6 leads that month. All three came off the list. That is one account in one month, so it is not a rate. It shows how a negative that looks safe on one row can cost you leads.

How to test a negative keyword against your search terms

1. Download the search terms report, with the Conversions column, for the campaigns the negative will cover, over at least the last 90 days.
2. Find every search the negative would block under its match type: for exact match, only the identical search; for phrase match, every search with its words in the same order; for broad match, every search that contains all of its words in any order.
3. Add up the conversions on those searches. If any converted, narrow the negative: switch it to exact match, make the phrase longer, or add it only to the one ad group where that search goes wrong.
4. Run the same test on every new negative, including the ones you add to shared lists and, in an account with search history, the day-one list. Phrase and broad negatives need it most, because they reach far more searches than the one row they came from.
5. After you add them, watch conversions for the next few weeks. The test only covers the searches the report lists.

Where Negative Keywords Apply

You can add negatives to an ad group, a campaign, a shared list or the whole account, and each reaches a different set of searches:

• Ad group or campaign. The negative applies only there, which suits a negative that is about one service or one area.
• Negative keyword lists. You can add up to 5,000 negative keywords per list, and create up to 20 negative keyword lists in your account, then apply a list to many campaigns at once. Add a word to the list later, and every campaign that shares the list gets the change.
• The account. An account-level list applies to all search and shopping inventory in Search, Performance Max, App, Shopping, Smart and Local campaigns, with a limit of 1,000 negative keywords. It fits the searches that should never trigger any of your ads.

Performance Max follows the same idea with one limit: Performance Max negative keywords are applicable to Search and Shopping inventory only. To keep its ads off unrelated Display and Video content, Google points you to excluded content keywords in the Content Suitability center. And in Display and Video campaigns, negative keywords work differently than they do for search, and some places where your ad appears may occasionally contain excluded terms.

Google Ads Negative Keywords Checklist

Run through this list each time you review your search terms:

1. Check what share of your Search spend the report lists for the period, so you know how much of the account you are judging.
2. Sort the spend that booked nothing into searches you never wanted, searches from outside your area and the right searches that did not book. Only the first pile gets negatives.
3. Put the searches that never book in a shared list or at the account level, so every campaign gets them.
4. Add the singular and plural forms and synonyms of each negative yourself, plus any misspelling you see in your search terms.
5. Test every new negative, phrase and broad ones above all, against at least 90 days of searches with conversions before you add it.
6. Check that no negative overlaps a keyword you bid on.
7. Look at conversions again a few weeks later, campaign by campaign.

Get Your Search Terms Checked

Look at your own numbers first if your search terms report lists less than half of your Search spend, if negatives go in straight from the report without a test, or if no one has sorted the spend that booked nothing into the wrong searches, the wrong places and the right searches that did not book.

We manage Google Search and Local Services Ads for home service companies, clinics and other local businesses that can count a booked customer. In the first weeks, we check which search terms spent money and booked nothing, and negative keywords go in from day one for searches that never book. Every month, we review search terms and booked jobs and move budget toward what books. Every monthly report starts with one number: what a booked customer cost you, with our fee included. Our fee is 25% of ad spend with a $500 minimum, and the rate drops as spend grows. Google Ads management is month to month, with 30 days’ notice to cancel. See how our Google Ads and Local Services Ads management works.

Or start with the free basic audit: five short fields, no call needed. It shows where the money went, what a booked customer costs, whether your tracking can be trusted, and what we would change first. The basic audit is free. A deeper audit is paid, and we tell you the price before we start. Get the free audit.

Sources

1. Google Ads Help, About negative keywords. Checked October 11, 2026.
2. Google Ads Help, About the search terms report. Checked October 11, 2026.
3. Google Ads Help, Get negative keyword ideas using the search terms report. Checked October 11, 2026.
4. Google Ads Help, Add negative keywords to campaigns. Checked October 11, 2026.
5. Google Ads Help, About keyword matching options. Checked October 11, 2026.
6. Google Ads Help, About search terms insights. Checked October 11, 2026.
7. Google Ads Help, About advanced location options. Checked October 11, 2026.
8. Google Ads Help, Estimate the impact of adding negative keywords to your Performance Max campaign. Checked October 11, 2026.
9. Google Ads Help, About negative keyword lists. Checked October 11, 2026.
10. Google Ads Help, About account-level negative keywords. Checked October 11, 2026.
11. Google Ads Help, Negative keywords in Performance Max campaigns. Checked October 11, 2026.
12. Google Ads Help, About the search terms report in Performance Max. Checked October 11, 2026.

The account examples come from Google Ads accounts we have run or reviewed. They are shown by type of business, with their periods, and no client is named.