Google Ads Negative Keyword List: 200+ Words Organized by Category and Industry

1. What Are Negative Keywords
2. Universal Negative Keywords (50+)
3. Ecommerce Negative Keywords
4. SaaS Negative Keywords
5. Local Services Negative Keywords
6. Healthcare Negative Keywords
7. Real Estate Negative Keywords
8. How to Add Negative Keywords
9. Key Patterns Across Industries

These 50+ negative keywords apply to virtually every Google Ads account regardless of industry. They filter out job seekers, freebie hunters, students, and other non-buyer intent. Add these to your account-level negative keyword list on day one.

Job Seeker Terms (13 keywords)

People searching for jobs, not your products or services. These terms generate high click volumes with zero commercial intent.

Free/DIY Terms (12 keywords)

People who want something for free. If you sell paid products or services, these terms burn budget on users who won’t convert.

Education/Research Terms (12 keywords)

Students and researchers. They’ll click your ad, read your landing page, and never convert because they’re writing a paper, not making a purchase.

Review/Comparison Terms (8 keywords)

People in research mode. They haven’t decided to buy yet and may never reach your landing page with purchase intent. Use cautiously: some of these are valid for remarketing campaigns.

Miscellaneous Non-Buyer Terms (8 keywords)

Important note: “free” is set to broad match because it catches variations like “free trial,” “free download.” The rest use phrase match to avoid over-blocking. Always test negatives against your search terms report before adding them. A B2B SaaS company might want to keep “free trial” as a valid search term, so adjust accordingly.

SaaS negative keywords focus on filtering out people who want free tools, open-source alternatives, or specific competitor products. The SaaS buyer journey is longer (avg. 14-day sales cycle for SMB, 60+ days for enterprise, per Gartner 2024), so you need to be more selective about which clicks you pay for.

SaaS accounts should also negative match their own brand name in non-brand campaigns to avoid cross-campaign competition. Use an account audit to identify keyword duplication across campaigns.

Healthcare Google Ads accounts face unique challenges. Medical queries mix patient intent with provider/career intent. Someone searching “dermatologist” might want an appointment, a career, or a definition. Healthcare CPCs average $3-8 but can hit $50+ for high-intent terms like “drug rehab near me” (Google Ads Benchmarks, 2024). These negatives filter out non-patient searches.

Caution: “Symptoms” is a high-volume term that occasionally converts for urgent care and telehealth providers. Test before adding it globally. If your conversion data shows symptom searches converting at even 1-2%, keep them in a separate campaign with lower bids rather than blocking them entirely.

You can add negative keywords at two levels: campaign-level and account-level (via shared lists). Here’s the step-by-step process for both.

Account-Level Negative Keyword List (Recommended)

1. Open Google Ads. Click Tools & Settings in the top menu.
2. Under “Shared Library,” click Negative Keyword Lists.
3. Click the blue + button to create a new list.
4. Name it clearly: “Universal Negatives,” “Industry Negatives,” etc.
5. Paste your negative keywords (one per line). Select phrase match by wrapping each in quotes, or leave as broad match.
6. Save the list, then apply it to all relevant campaigns by checking the campaign boxes.

Account-level shared lists are the best approach because they apply across all campaigns automatically. When you add a new campaign, just assign the existing lists. This prevents the common mistake of forgetting negatives on new campaigns.

Campaign-Level Negatives

Use campaign-level negatives for terms specific to one campaign. For example, if you run separate campaigns for “residential plumbing” and “commercial plumbing,” add “commercial” as a negative to the residential campaign and vice versa. This prevents cross-campaign cannibalization.

Check our Google Ads Account Structure Template for more on organizing campaigns with cross-negatives.

Don’t blindly copy-paste every negative keyword. Start with the universal list (items 1-53), then add your industry-specific list. After that, review your actual search terms report every two weeks and add account-specific negatives.

Here’s the 3-step process we use at ScaleGrowth.Digital:

1. Apply universal negatives immediately. Add all 53 universal negatives to an account-level shared list on day one. These are safe across virtually all accounts.
2. Add industry negatives after review. Read through your industry list above. Remove any that might be valid for your specific business (e.g., a SaaS company selling an open-source product shouldn’t negative-match “open source”).
3. Mine your search terms report bi-weekly. Export the search terms report for the last 14 days. Sort by spend, descending. Any term with $20+ spend and zero conversions is a candidate for your negative list. We add 5-15 new negatives per account per month using this method.