Every Google Ads campaign has a silent budget leak. It's not a broken landing page or poor ad copy — it's irrelevant search terms triggering your ads and costing you money.
Negative keywords are how you seal that leak. They tell Google which searches should not show your ads, protecting your budget for queries that actually matter.
This guide gives you a complete, ready-to-use negative keyword list for 2026 — organised by category — plus instructions for adding them correctly in Google Ads.
A negative keyword is a word or phrase that, when included in a search query, prevents your ad from appearing. If you're a paid software company and someone searches "free CRM software," adding "free" as a negative keyword ensures you don't pay for that click.
Negative keywords are one of the most cost-efficient optimisations in Google Ads. Most accounts waste 10–20% of their budget on irrelevant searches — negative keywords fix this without requiring additional spend.
Just like regular keywords, negatives have match types:
-free blocks "free software" and "software for free."-"free software" blocks "download free software" but not "software that's free."-[free software] blocks only "free software" — nothing else.For most accounts, negative phrase match offers the best balance between protection and coverage.
These terms rarely signal purchase intent and should be excluded from almost every paid campaign:
Add all countries, cities, and regions where you don't serve customers.
Add these to protect your campaigns from irrelevant traffic:
Job/career intent:
Free/DIY intent:
Educational intent (non-buyer):
When running campaigns on your own brand name, add these to prevent irrelevant queries:
If you're bidding on competitor terms, tighten with negatives:
Negative keyword lists let you apply the same set of negatives across multiple campaigns at once — much more efficient than adding them manually to each.
Pro tip: Create separate lists by theme — one for job/career terms, one for free/DIY intent, one for competitor terms. This makes it easy to apply different combinations to different campaigns.
The best source of negative keywords is your own data. Every week, review your Search Terms Report:
This is how you build a campaign-specific negative keyword list over time.
Weekly (for active campaigns): Review the Search Terms Report and add new irrelevant queries.
Monthly: Audit your full negative keyword list to remove any that might be blocking legitimate traffic.
When launching a new campaign: Start with your universal list and industry-specific list before the campaign goes live — don't wait for wasteful spend to happen first.
How many negative keywords can I add? Each campaign can have up to 10,000 negative keywords. Each negative keyword list can also hold up to 10,000 terms. For most accounts, a few hundred targeted negatives is sufficient.
Can negative keywords accidentally block good traffic? Yes — be careful with broad negatives. For example, adding "free" as a broad negative would also block "risk-free" or "hands-free." Use phrase or exact match when in doubt.
Should I add negative keywords before or after launching a campaign? Both. Add your universal and industry-specific negatives before launch to protect your initial budget. Then continuously refine based on your Search Terms Report data.
Do negative keywords work in Performance Max campaigns? Performance Max has limited negative keyword support — you can only add them via account-level negative keyword lists or by requesting exclusions through Google support. This is one reason many advertisers keep traditional Search campaigns running alongside PMax.
Can the same keyword be both a positive and a negative keyword? Not in the same campaign at the same match type. If there's a conflict, the negative takes priority. This is worth checking if you notice a keyword that should be triggering but isn't.
Negative keywords aren't a one-time setup — they're an ongoing discipline. The accounts that get the most out of Google Ads are those that regularly audit their Search Terms Report and keep their negative lists sharp.
Start with the universal list above, add your industry-specific terms, and build the habit of weekly reviews. Within a month, you'll see the difference in both your budget efficiency and your conversion rates.
Related reading: Beginner Guide to Google Ads | Types of Google Ads Campaigns | How to Advertise on Google Search | 7 Key Benefits of Google Ads