Most UK small business Google Ads accounts lose money in the same place. Ads show up for searches that were never going to become customers: people looking for jobs, students doing courses, DIYers hunting for a how-to video, bargain hunters on Gumtree. Negative keywords stop that. Below is a starting list for UK accounts, how the match types actually behave, and a weekly routine that keeps the list current.
What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
Your positive keywords decide which searches you could show for. Negatives remove the ones you should not show for. Broad and phrase match keywords now reach a lot of loosely related searches, so in a small account the negative list does much of the real targeting work.
Take a boiler engineer in Birmingham bidding on "boiler repair". Without negatives, that keyword can trigger "boiler repair apprenticeship", "boiler repair course", "boiler repair salary" and "boiler repair parts Screwfix". Every one of those clicks costs money, and none of them leads to a booked job.
How do negative match types work?
Google's own help page on negative keywords sets out the rules:
- Negative broad (the default): your ad will not show if the search contains all of your negative keyword terms, even in a different order.
- Negative phrase: your ad will not show if the search contains the exact terms in the same order.
- Negative exact: your ad will not show if the search contains the exact terms, in the same order, with no extra words.
Most people get caught out by close variants. The same page says negative keywords do not match close variants, and that you need to add synonyms and singular or plural versions yourself. If a common misspelling of a bad term keeps appearing in your search terms report, add that too.
What should a UK negative keywords list include?
These are the groups that turn up in nearly every UK service account:
- Jobs and careers: jobs, job, vacancies, vacancy, careers, career, salary, salaries, wage, hiring, recruitment, apprenticeship, apprenticeships, Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs.
- Education and qualifications: course, courses, training, NVQ, City and Guilds, qualification, qualifications, college, university, exam, certificate.
- DIY and how-to: how to, DIY, yourself, tutorial, YouTube, video, step by step, guide.
- Free and bargain intent: free, template, templates, pdf, download, second hand, used, Gumtree, eBay, Facebook Marketplace.
- Research and reference: definition, meaning, what is, Wikipedia, Reddit, Mumsnet, statistics.
- Retailers and parts: Screwfix, Toolstation, B&Q, Wickes, Argos, Amazon, parts, spares.
Watch out for terms like "cheap" and "what is". For a removals firm, "cheap man and van" can be a real buyer. For a private dental practice, "what is a dental implant" might be early research from someone who books three months later. Do not copy a list in blindly. Cut each term only when your own data shows it does not convert.
Some trade-specific examples:
- Private dentist: NHS, NHS dentist, free dental, dental nurse, dental school.
- Solicitor: legal aid, pro bono, law degree, paralegal jobs, solicitor salary.
- Cleaning company: cleaning jobs, cleaner wanted, cleaning products, cleaning tips.
How many negative keywords can a Google Ads account hold?
All three figures come from Google's account limits page. In practice, set up two or three shared lists ("Jobs and education", "DIY and free", "Retailers") and keep campaign-level negatives for terms that only matter to one service line.
Should I use shared lists or campaign-level negatives?
Picture an electrician running two campaigns, "EV charger installation" and "Emergency electrician". "Tesla" might be a sensible negative for the emergency campaign and a valuable term for the EV one. That belongs at campaign level. "Electrician apprenticeship" is wrong for both, so it goes in a shared list.
Campaign-level negatives also stop your own campaigns competing with each other. If "emergency" belongs to the emergency campaign, add it as a negative in the general campaign so urgent searches reach the ad and landing page written for them.
Do negative keywords work in Performance Max?
PPC Land reported the change after an announcement by Google Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin. For a small business, this means Performance Max is no longer a black box on search queries. You can add the same exclusions you use in Search. Just remember that the visual placements need their own controls, such as content exclusions and brand safety settings.
How do I find new negative keywords each week?
A routine that works:
- In Google Ads, go to Insights and reports, then Search terms, and set the date range to the last seven days.
- Sort by cost, highest first.
- For each irrelevant search, work out which word makes it irrelevant. Add that word, not the whole search. "Boiler repair course Coventry" means "course" is the negative.
- Choose the match type. A single word that is never relevant goes in as broad. A phrase that is only bad in that order goes in as phrase.
- Add the plural and synonyms at the same time.
- Put the term in the shared list if it applies everywhere, or in the campaign if it does not.
Check conversions before you cut anything. A search that looks odd but has produced two enquiries is not waste. Testing landing pages works the same way, and the guide to A/B testing for UK small businesses explains how to judge results without being fooled by small samples.
What mistakes do people make with negative keywords?
The mistakes that do the most damage:
- Blocking buyer words. "Price", "cost" and "near me" look like bargain or research terms. For most local services they are high-intent searches. Only cut them if your data shows they do not convert.
- Adding the full search term. "Plumber jobs in Bristol for beginners" as a phrase negative blocks almost nothing. "Jobs" blocks all of them.
- Forgetting the 16-word rule. Google notes that your ad can still show when a search runs longer than 16 words and your negative comes after the 16th word. This rarely matters, but it explains the occasional strange match.
- Conflicting negatives. A negative that matches one of your own positive keywords will block it. Google Ads can flag these conflicts as a recommendation, so check after every big upload.
How much budget can negative keywords save?
Pull the search terms report for the last 30 days, tag every irrelevant term, and add up what they cost. That figure is your wasted spend for the month. Run the same check 30 days after adding negatives. The difference is money you can move to keywords that convert. If you are weighing up where your wider marketing and tooling budget should go, the UK small business AI cost breakdown gives useful context.
Accounts with broad match keywords and no negatives usually see the biggest change. Tight exact-match accounts see less, because they were already filtering most of the waste. For help setting up or running campaigns, see the paid media services page.
Google Ads Negative Keywords UK — FAQ
How many negative keywords can I add in Google Ads?
Google's account limits page sets the caps. You can have 20 shared negative keyword lists per account, and each list can hold up to 5,000 keywords. Each campaign can also hold up to 10,000 negative keywords of its own. Most UK small businesses never get near these limits. A local trade or clinic usually runs well on a shared list of a few hundred terms plus a short campaign-level list. If you find yourself pushing towards thousands of negatives, your positive keywords are probably too broad. Fix the targeting first rather than trying to block every bad search one at a time.
Do negative keywords block plurals and misspellings?
No, not reliably. Google's help page says negative keywords do not match close variants, so you need to add synonyms and singular or plural versions yourself. Close variants include misspellings, so it is worth adding the common ones too if they show up in your search terms report. If you exclude 'job', add 'jobs' as well. If you exclude 'course', add 'courses' and 'training'. This is the most common gap in a UK negative list. People add one form of a word and then wonder why the search terms report still shows the plural version eating budget.
Can I add negative keywords to Performance Max campaigns?
Yes. PPC Land reported that Google raised the Performance Max negative keyword limit from 100 to 10,000 per campaign in March 2025, following an announcement by Google Ads Product Liaison Ginny Marvin. Those negatives apply to Search and Shopping inventory only, so they will not stop your ads appearing on YouTube or Display placements inside a Performance Max campaign. If you run Performance Max alongside a standard Search campaign, apply the same shared exclusions to both so the cleaner Search traffic is not undercut by the automated campaign.
Should I use broad, phrase or exact match for negative keywords?
Use negative broad for single words that are never relevant, such as 'jobs', 'salary' or 'free'. Google's help page explains that a negative broad keyword blocks any search that contains all its terms in any order. Use negative phrase when word order matters, such as 'how to' or 'second hand'. Use negative exact only when you want to block one specific search but keep longer versions of it running. For example, a solicitor might block the exact search 'will' on its own, which is vague, while keeping 'will writing solicitor Bristol' live.
How often should I check the search terms report?
Weekly for the first two months of a new campaign, then every two weeks once the obvious waste is gone. New campaigns tend to pick up the most irrelevant searches early, while Google is still learning what your keywords mean. Sort the report by cost, not clicks, and work from the top down. Ten minutes a week is usually enough for a small local account. Skip it for a month and you will often find a handful of expensive searches that should have been blocked in week one.
