Negative keywords tell Google which searches you don't want your ads to appear for. They stop you paying for clicks from job seekers, students and bargain hunters who will never become customers.
Almost every account we audit is paying for searches that were never going to become customers. The usual suspects are job searches, "free" and DIY searches, and other locations. In Malaysia we also check Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese searches, such as "kerja", "jawatan kosong" and "percuma", which often get missed if the account was set up only with English negatives.
The costliest waste is rarely an obvious junk search. In one industrial account, searches for a product they didn't stock cost over RM500 before we caught it.
— Kok Han, Founder, OneStopMaker (Google Partner agency)
When you add a word as a negative keyword, Google won't show your ad for searches containing it. An accounting firm advertising on "accountant Kuala Lumpur" doesn't want to appear for "accountant jobs Kuala Lumpur", so it adds jobs as a negative. Every blocked irrelevant click is budget saved for a real enquiry.
You can add negatives at three levels: an ad group, a campaign, or a shared negative keyword list that you apply to many campaigns at once (in Google Ads under Tools → Shared library).
Negative keywords use match types too, but they behave a little differently from normal keywords:
Importantly, negative keywords don't match close variants. Blocking "job" won't block "jobs", so add singular and plural forms, and common misspellings.
Be careful: a word that's negative for one business is a buying signal for another. "Course" is wasted spend for a dental clinic and the best keyword a training centre has.
The best source is your own data. In Google Ads, open Insights & reports → Search terms to see the actual searches that triggered your ads. Sort by cost, and add anything irrelevant as a negative. In a new account, do this every few days; once things settle, weekly is usually enough.
Yes. A broad negative like "free" would also block "free consultation", which might be a great search for you. Check your list against your best-performing search terms before applying it.
Yes. Google now supports campaign-level negative keywords in Performance Max, as well as account-level negatives and brand exclusions.
Negative Keyword List Builder › Build a ready-to-paste list in seconds, including Bahasa Malaysia and Chinese terms.
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