Add negative keywords to campaigns

By adding negative keywords to your campaigns, you can avoid showing your ads on searches for (or sites that) contain those terms.

This article shows you how to add negative keywords to your campaigns. You can also learn more about how to edit, remove, or download negative keywords.

Negative keywords in Google Ads campaigns

Negative keywords aren't as precise on the Google Display Network as they are on the Google Search Network. Your ad may still occasionally appear on pages containing these terms. For Google Display Network 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 Google Display and Video campaigns, all negative keywords will be considered broad matches.

Before you begin

If you’re new to negative keywords, learn more about negative keywords.

Instructions

  1. Sign in to your Search Ads 360 experience.
  2. Click Keywords from the page menu on the left.
  3. Click Negative keywords.
  4. Click the plus button .
  5. Select an account type.
  6. Choose whether to add negative keywords to a campaign or an ad group, then select the specific campaign or ad group.
  7. 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.
    • If you’re adding negative keywords to a search campaign, you can choose a match type by using the appropriate symbols. For Google Display Network and Video campaigns, all negative keywords will be added as exact match, and you won't be able to change the match type.
    • If you’re adding your negative keywords to a Google Ads campaign, you have the option to save the keywords to a new or existing negative keyword list and apply that list to the campaign. Check Save to new or existing list, then enter a name for your new list, or select an existing list.
  8. Click Save.

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