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Google Ads is a powerful tool that helps businesses boost their online visibility and connect with their target audience. Its extensive reach and precise targeting options enable marketers to build effective campaigns and engage with potential customers. However, even the best-crafted campaigns can struggle without using negative keywords.
What Are Negative Keywords and How Do They Work?
Negative keywords prevent your ads from showing up for searches that are irrelevant to your business or unlikely to result in a conversion. Instead of focusing on the terms you want your ad to appear for, negative keywords allow you to block the ones you don’t want. For instance, advertisers often exclude terms like “free” or “cheap” to avoid showing ads to users looking for the lowest prices—unless that’s part of their brand strategy.
Types of Keyword Matches
Just like positive keywords, negative keywords come in different match types that give you more control over how your ads are filtered.
Broad Match Negative Keywords
Broad match negative keywords block your ads from showing when a search query contains all the terms in your negative keyword phrase, though not necessarily in the same order. However, if a query includes only part of your phrase, your ad may still appear.
Exact Match Negative Keywords
Exact match negative keywords prevent your ad from showing only when the search query matches the keyword exactly, in the same order and without any other words. However, if the search includes additional terms, your ad could still appear.
Phrase Match Negative Keywords
Phrase match negative keywords block your ad from showing when a search contains the exact keyword phrase in the same word order, even if other words are included in the query.
For example, if “affordable car rental” is a negative phrase match, your ad won’t appear for searches like “affordable car rental deals,” but it could still show for “affordable rental cars.”
This post was written by Kristian D’An. Kristian is the owner and SEO Specialist at Lux Digital Marketing, a Clearwater SEO company. Kristian has been optimizing websites successfully for over 7 years. He has helped his clients achieve the #1 position on Google in several different industries.
