Key takeaways
- Build negatives as shared lists, or one account-level list, so one update covers every campaign.
- Start with five lists: jobs, free and DIY, education, wrong-fit products, and places you don’t serve.
- Negative keywords don’t cover plurals, synonyms or close variants. Add them yourself.
- Advertising in Quebec? Add the French versions of every list.
Negative keywords stop your ads from showing on searches that will never turn into customers. In a new account they’re the fastest way to stop wasted spend, and a handful of lists covers most of it.
Why start with shared lists
You can add negatives to one campaign at a time, but it doesn’t scale. A shared negative keyword list lives in your account’s Shared library, and you can apply it to as many campaigns as you like. When you find a new term to block, you add it once and every campaign using the list picks it up.
Google also lets you set negatives at the account level. An account-level list applies to all eligible search and shopping inventory across your campaigns, so it’s the right home for terms you never want, like job searches. Use campaign lists for terms that only matter in one campaign.
This matters most in Canada, where many accounts run separate campaigns for English and French, or for each city they serve.
The five lists to build on day one
| List | Starter terms | In French |
|---|---|---|
| Jobs and careers | job, jobs, careers, hiring, salary, resume, internship | emploi, emplois, carrière, salaire, stage |
| Free and DIY | free, diy, how to, tutorial, template | gratuit, comment, tutoriel, modèle |
| Education | course, courses, training, certification, school | cours, formation, certification, école |
| Wrong-fit products | used, wholesale, rental, parts (depends on your business) | usagé, en gros, location, pièces |
| Places you don’t serve | nearby cities outside your area, US border cities, usa | the same place names |
Treat these as starting points, not rules. A staffing agency wants job searches, and a training company wants course searches. Remove anything that describes your real customers.
Tip: check the search terms report every week for the first month. Most of your best negatives will come from real searches you didn’t predict.
Negatives don’t match the way keywords do
Your regular keywords match close variants, like plurals and similar meanings. Negative keywords don’t. Google’s help page says they won’t match close variants or other expansions, so you need to add singular and plural versions, and synonyms, yourself. Block “job” and “jobs”, not just one. Capitalization doesn’t matter.
Match types still apply to negatives:
- Negative broad blocks a search that contains all your words, in any order.
- Negative phrase blocks a search that contains your words in the same order, with other words around them.
- Negative exact blocks only that exact search, with no extra words.
Most starter terms work best as negative broad single words, like “jobs”. Use phrase or exact when a word is only bad in one combination, like “free estimate” for a business that does offer free estimates.
If you advertise in Quebec
Many searchers in Quebec search in French, and some mix French and English in one query. Put the English and French terms in the same shared list so both are blocked in every campaign. Then review your French search terms separately, because your English list won’t catch French slang or spelling variations.
Your first-week checklist
- Create the five lists in the Shared library, or put the always-bad terms in an account-level list.
- Remove any term that describes your real customers.
- Add plurals, synonyms and French versions.
- Apply the lists to every Search campaign.
- Review the search terms report weekly and add new negatives to the right list.
Sources: About negative keywords, Google Ads Help · Negative keyword lists, Google Ads Help. Platform details as of November 2026.