You open the search terms report for the first time in a while, sort by cost, and the top row is a search you would never have bid on on purpose: "free" plus your product name, forty clicks, no sales. Two rows down there is a job seeker, then someone looking for a repair guide. None of it is dramatic on its own. Added together it is a meaningful slice of the month, and every one of those searches could have been switched off in under a minute.
Short version: Adding negative keywords takes about thirty seconds. Choosing the right match type and the right level takes judgement, and getting either wrong either leaves the waste running or blocks searches you were making money from. Work from the search terms report, add negatives at the level that matches how broadly the term applies, put universal junk in a shared negative keyword list, and check what you blocked a week later.
Negative keywords are the cheapest optimisation in Google Ads. Every irrelevant search you exclude is budget that moves to a search that can convert, and you do not have to touch a single bid to get it. This guide covers every way of adding negative keywords: from the search terms report, directly in a campaign, to a list, at account level and in bulk, plus how match types and levels behave once they are in.
How to add negative keywords in Google Ads: the quick answer
There are five places you can add negative keywords, and each one suits a different job:
| Where you add it | Path in Google Ads | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Search terms report | Campaigns, Insights and reports, Search terms | Blocking searches that already cost you money |
| Campaign or ad group | Campaigns, Audiences, keywords and content, Search keywords, Negative search keywords | Terms you already know you want blocked |
| Negative keyword list | Tools, Shared library, Exclusion lists | Junk that is wrong for many campaigns |
| Account level | Admin, Account settings, Negative keywords | Terms that are wrong for the entire business |
| Google Ads Editor | Keywords and targeting, Negative keywords | Adding negative keywords in bulk |
Menu labels shift a little between interface versions, so if a label on your screen reads slightly differently, look for the nearest match. The logic is the same everywhere.
Method 1: how to add negative keywords from the search terms report
Start where the evidence is. The search terms report shows the actual searches your ads appeared for, which is a very different thing from the keywords you chose:
- Open the search terms report. Go to Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms. Set the date range to the last 30 to 90 days so you have enough volume to judge.
- Filter to terms with cost. Add a filter for clicks greater than zero, then sort by cost descending. A term that has spent money and never converted is the one worth your attention.
- Tick the terms you want to exclude using the checkboxes on the left.
- Click "Add as negative keyword" above the table.
- Choose the level: ad group, campaign, or a negative keyword list. This is the decision that matters most, and it is covered in detail below.
- Choose the match type, edit the term if you want to block a concept rather than one exact search, then save.
That edit in the last step is where good negative keyword work happens. If the search was "free leather wallet pattern download", you rarely want to block that exact string. You want to block "pattern" and "download" as concepts, because next month the search will be worded differently.
Method 2: adding negative keywords directly to a campaign or ad group
When you already know what you want to block, such as a competitor name, a category you do not sell, or the standard job seeker terms, you do not need the search terms report. Go to the campaign, open Audiences, keywords and content, then Search keywords, and select the Negative search keywords tab. Click the plus button, choose whether the negatives belong to the campaign or to a specific ad group, and paste one negative per line.
Typing match type punctuation works the same here as for positive keywords: plain words for broad, quotation marks for phrase, square brackets for exact. This is the fastest way of adding negative keywords before a new campaign launches, and pre-loading the obvious junk on day one saves the first month of budget from learning lessons you already know.
Method 3: how to add negative keywords to a list
A negative keyword list is a shared set of negatives you build once and apply to as many campaigns as you like. Update the list and every campaign using it inherits the change, which is why it beats adding the same negative in fifteen places.
Creating the list
Go to Tools, then Shared library, then Exclusion lists, and open the negative keyword lists tab. Click the plus button, name the list for what it contains ("Universal junk", "Job seekers", "Competitors"), and paste your negatives one per line with the match type punctuation you want. Save it. If you manage several accounts from a manager account, a list created there can be shared into the client accounts beneath it.
Applying the list to campaigns
From the same list view, select the list and choose Apply to campaigns, then tick every campaign it should cover. You can also go the other way: from inside a campaign's negative keyword tab, choose to use a negative keyword list and pick the list. Either route gives the same result.
Google allows up to 5,000 negative keywords in a single shared list, so size is rarely the limit. Organisation is. Several small, clearly named lists are easier to reason about than one enormous list nobody dares to edit.
Name lists by reason, not by date
"Negatives March" tells nobody anything six months later. "Job seekers", "DIY and how to", "Products we do not stock" and "Competitors" tell you exactly why every term is there, and which list to check when a search you wanted suddenly disappears.
Method 4: account-level negative keywords
Account-level negative keywords sit above every campaign. You add them under Admin, then Account settings, then Negative keywords, and they apply to Search and Shopping inventory across the account, including Performance Max. This is the right home for terms that are wrong for the whole business, for example "jobs" and "careers" on almost any e-commerce store, or adult terms on a children's brand.
Use it sparingly. Because it touches everything, a mistake at account level blocks traffic everywhere at once, and it is the last place most people think to look when volume drops.
Method 5: adding negative keywords in bulk with Google Ads Editor
For a large pass, such as building out a new account or cleaning up a messy one, Google Ads Editor is faster than the web interface. Download the account, go to Keywords and targeting, then Negative keywords, and use Make multiple changes to paste a table of campaign, ad group and negative keyword. Shared negative keyword lists can be built and edited in Editor's shared library too. Review the pending changes, then post them.
Editor is also the easiest place to spot duplicates. Sort the negative keywords view by keyword and you will often find the same term added at ad group level in dozens of places, which is a sign it belongs in a shared list instead.
Adding negative keywords to AdWords: same job, new name
If you learned on AdWords, nothing fundamental has changed. Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads in 2018, and adding negative keywords to an AdWords campaign then is the same job as adding them in Google Ads now. The menus moved, the shared library is still where negative keyword lists live, and match type rules for negatives are unchanged. Older guides that tell you to use the "Keywords" tab and a "Negative keywords" sub-tab are describing the same thing with older labels.
The bigger change since the AdWords days is not the interface, it is match type behaviour. Positive keywords now match far more loosely than they used to, and broad match leans heavily on Google's reading of intent. Negatives did not loosen with them, and that gap is why negatives matter more now than it did then.
Negative keyword match types: how each one blocks
This is where most of the damage happens, because negative match types do not behave like positive ones.
- Negative broad match (typed plainly, no punctuation). Blocks any search containing all of those words in any order. A negative broad of
free shippingblocks "free shipping shoes" and "shoes with free shipping" but not "free delivery". This is the workhorse for junk concepts. - Negative phrase match (in quotation marks). Blocks searches containing that exact sequence of words, with anything before or after.
"running shoes"blocks "cheap running shoes" but not "shoes for running". - Negative exact match (in square brackets). Blocks only that precise search and nothing else.
[running shoes]blocks exactly that term while "best running shoes" still serves.
| Negative type | Blocks | Does not block | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broad | Searches containing all your words, any order | Synonyms, misspellings, plurals | Junk concepts: free, jobs, DIY |
| Phrase | Your words in that exact order, extras allowed | Reordered wording | Multi-word ideas: "how to make" |
| Exact | Only that precise search | Anything with an extra word | One specific costly term |
The practical rule: use negative exact when you are excluding one specific search that failed and the words inside it are fine elsewhere. Use negative phrase or broad when you are excluding an entire concept.
The close variant trap
Negative keywords do not match close variants. A negative for "shoe" will not block "shoes", and a negative for "cheap" will not block "cheapest". Plurals, misspellings and alternative forms all need adding separately. This is the opposite of how positive keywords behave, and it catches experienced managers out regularly. When you block a concept, add the singular, the plural and the common misspelling in one go.