By adding negative keywords to your account or campaigns, you can avoid targeting content that contains those terms. By using negative keywords with other exclusions or content targeting methods, your ads will target any of the selected content in your ad group and help you reach a broader audience.
This article shows you how to add negative keywords at the account and campaign level. You can also learn more about how to edit, remove or download negative keywords.
Before you begin
If you’re new to negative keywords, start by learning more About negative keywords.
Bear in mind
Negative keywords aren't as precise on the Display Network as they are on the Search Network. Your ad may still occasionally appear on pages containing these terms. For Display ads, a maximum of 5,000 negative keywords is considered. Site category options and content exclusions are the best ways to avoid targeting unrelated sites or videos.
For Display and Video campaigns, all negative keywords will be considered broad matches.
Add negative keywords to ad groups, campaigns and negative keyword lists
- Choose whether to add negative keywords to all campaigns or a specific campaign, then select the specific campaign or ad group.
- To edit negative keywords for all campaigns, click Edit exclusions.
- To edit negative keywords for a specific campaign, click the arrow
next to 'Show table', select the campaign you want to edit, then click Edit exclusions.
- Add your keywords, one per line. Make sure that your negative keywords don't overlap with your regular keywords, because this will cause your ad not to show.
- Note: If you’re adding negative keywords to a search campaign, you can choose a match type by using the appropriate symbols. For Display and video campaigns, all negative keywords will be added as broad match, and you won't be able to change the match type.
- If you’re adding your negative keywords to a campaign, you have the option to save the keywords to a new or existing negative keyword list and apply that list to the campaign. Tick Save to new or existing list, then enter a name for your new list or select an existing list.
- Click Done.
next to 'Show table', select the campaign you want to edit, then click Edit exclusions.Use an existing negative keyword list
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Audiences, keywords and content drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Search keywords.
- Go to the 'Negative search keywords' tab and click the plus button
.
- Choose the Use negative keyword list option and select the campaign that you’d like to apply negative keyword lists to.
- On the table below, tick the boxes of the negative keyword lists that you’d like to use.
- Click Save.
.Add or remove negative keywords lists from multiple campaigns
- In your Google Ads account, click the Tools icon
.
- Click the Shared library drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Exclusion lists and go to the 'Negative keyword lists' tab.
- To add a negative keyword list to multiple campaigns:
- Select the negative keyword list that you’d like to add.
- Click Apply to campaigns.
- Tick the boxes of the campaigns that you’d like to apply the list to.
- Click Done.
- To remove a negative keyword list from multiple campaigns:
- Select the negative keyword list that you’d like to remove.
- Tick the boxes of the campaigns that you’d like the list to be removed from.
- Click Remove list from selected campaigns.
.Add negative keywords at the account level
You can add negative keywords at the account level and they will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. There is a limit of 1,000 negative keywords that can be added at the account level. Learn more About account level negative keywords.
Tip
Try excluding sites or categories to limit the visibility of your Display ads.
