A strong negative keyword list is one of the simplest ways to cut wasted spend, improve search intent matching, and keep reporting cleaner across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. This guide gives you a reusable negative keyword list by industry for ecommerce, SaaS, local services, and B2B, plus a practical framework for deciding what belongs in account-level lists, campaign-level exclusions, and ad-group-specific cleanup. Treat it as a living resource: revisit it whenever your offers, locations, funnel stages, or search term patterns change.
Overview
Negative keywords stop ads from appearing on searches that are irrelevant to your offer. In practical terms, they protect budget from low-intent traffic, job seekers, support queries, educational searches, and mismatched product or service expectations. The core idea is simple: if a term signals a searcher is unlikely to become a qualified lead or customer, it may belong on your negative keyword list.
That simplicity hides an important detail. Negative keywords work best when they are organized by intent pattern, not gathered as a random dump of words. Generic lists can help you get started, but they should not be applied blindly. A term like “free,” for example, is often a sensible negative for lead generation or premium SaaS, but it may be a valuable keyword for a freemium product or a retailer promoting free samples. The safest evergreen approach is to treat industry lists as starting points, then confirm them with search term analysis.
Most advertising platforms let you apply negatives at different levels. Shared or account-level lists are useful for broad exclusions you want across many campaigns, such as job-seeking terms, customer support intent, or unrelated marketplaces. Campaign-level negatives are useful when one campaign should not compete with another. Ad-group-level negatives are useful for tighter control when closely related keyword themes need clearer separation.
This matters for more than efficiency. Cleaner negatives usually produce cleaner reporting. If your campaigns are pulling in fewer irrelevant queries, your campaign performance dashboard and cross platform ad reporting are more trustworthy, because spend and conversion trends are less diluted by noise. If you already use ad management software, PPC management software, or a keyword management tool, negative list governance should be part of the workflow alongside search term reviews, keyword grouping, and budget pacing.
Before using the lists below, keep two rules in mind. First, negative keywords should reflect business model and offer, not just industry label. Second, review match type behavior and platform rules before bulk uploads. The objective is not to block traffic aggressively for its own sake. It is to block the wrong traffic while preserving room for high-intent variation.
Template structure
Use this structure to build a negative keyword list that stays manageable over time.
1. Create three list tiers
Universal negatives: Terms that are almost never valuable for your account. Common examples include job-seeking intent, training-only intent, pirated-download intent, or platform-navigation queries for unrelated destinations.
Business-model negatives: Terms that are usually low value for a specific type of company, such as “wholesale” for a DTC store that does not sell in bulk, or “open source” for a closed commercial SaaS product.
Campaign separation negatives: Terms used to prevent overlap between campaigns, such as excluding “demo” from awareness campaigns while allowing it in bottom-funnel branded or solution campaigns.
2. Organize by intent pattern
Instead of thinking only in single words, group negatives into intent buckets:
- Employment: jobs, careers, salary, hiring, internship
- Education: course, tutorial, training, certification, how to become
- Free-only intent: free, no cost, free download
- Piracy or non-commercial access: torrent, cracked, nulled
- Support intent: login, customer service, phone number, refund, troubleshooting
- Research-only or low-buying intent: definition, meaning, example, template, PDF, wiki
- Wrong audience: DIY, used, second hand, wholesale, supplier, manufacturer
- Wrong geography: city, state, country, near me modifiers outside your service area
This pattern-based approach makes your negative keyword tool or shared library easier to maintain than a flat list with no context.
3. Label each negative with a reason
When you add a term, note why it exists. Useful labels include:
- Low commercial intent
- Wrong product type
- Support query
- Job seeker
- Academic intent
- Competitor navigation not worth bidding on
- Out-of-area traffic
This small habit helps future audits. Without labels, teams often remove negatives they do not understand and reintroduce waste.
4. Keep a master review sheet
Your sheet can be simple. Include columns for keyword, match type, list location, reason, date added, source query, and owner. If you also run cross platform ad reporting, add platform columns so you can compare whether the same negative should exist in Google Ads management workflows and Microsoft Ads reporting workflows.
5. Start with a universal baseline
Many accounts benefit from reviewing these baseline exclusions first:
- jobs
- job
- career
- careers
- salary
- internship
- training
- course
- tutorial
- how to become
- torrent
- cracked
- free if your offer is strictly paid
- customer service if acquisition campaigns should not absorb support traffic
- login if log-in intent is not part of your acquisition goal
These patterns align with common examples from established PPC guidance: employment terms, education terms, and piracy-related intent are frequent sources of wasted clicks.
How to customize
The fastest way to make a negative keyword list useful is to customize it around what your business does not want. Start with your offer boundaries, then confirm them using search term analysis.
Ecommerce negative keywords
Ecommerce accounts often struggle with mismatch between catalog reality and shopper expectations. Common negative patterns include:
- Free-only intent: free, giveaway, free sample, free trial if you do not offer one
- DIY or informational intent: how to make, tutorial, pattern, recipe, instructions
- Used or low-price mismatch: used, second hand, Craigslist, marketplace if you sell new products only
- Wrong supply chain intent: wholesale, supplier, manufacturer, distributor when you sell retail only
- Support intent: return policy, tracking, phone number, login, warranty claim if those should be handled outside paid acquisition
- Wrong product format: manual, PDF, template, clipart, image, wallpaper when selling physical goods
Example: a premium apparel brand may exclude “cheap,” “used,” and “wholesale,” but should think carefully before excluding “sale” or “discount,” since those terms can still convert. A home decor store might block “DIY” and “how to build” while keeping “ideas” if content-assisted shopping is part of the funnel.
If shipping or margin pressure changes what you can profitably sell, revisit negatives alongside bid strategy. Our related guide on recalculating ad bids, CPA targets, and product margins is a useful companion when catalog economics shift.
SaaS PPC keywords and negative filters
SaaS campaigns often attract broad research traffic, student traffic, and support traffic. Typical negative patterns include:
- Academic or learning intent: course, tutorial, certification, syllabus, training, Udemy
- Free-only intent: free download, free software, cracked, torrent
- Support intent: login, sign in, customer support, refund, phone number
- Technical mismatch: open source, self hosted, API only, plugin, extension if those do not describe your offer
- Employment intent: jobs, salary, interview questions
- Research-only intent: definition, meaning, example, PDF, template if they rarely convert for your model
Be careful with “free” in SaaS. For some products, “free” is bad traffic. For freemium products, it may be a core acquisition term. The same caution applies to “open source” and “template.” They can be poor fits for one business and high-intent entry points for another.
To build stronger expansion and exclusions together, pair negative reviews with demand research. Our Google Keyword Planner guide can help you separate valid keyword expansion from terms that belong in a negative keyword list.
Local services negative keywords
Local services campaigns usually waste spend through geography errors, employment traffic, and DIY searches. Common patterns include:
- Jobs: apprentice, salary, hiring, careers, union jobs
- DIY intent: how to fix, tutorial, YouTube, instructions, home remedy
- Out-of-area traffic: city names or regions you do not serve
- Emergency mismatch: 24 hour, same day, after hours if you do not provide emergency service
- Price mismatch: cheap, free, low cost if your service positioning is premium and those queries consistently fail
- Parts-only intent: parts, supplies, kit, replacement part if you sell service rather than products
For local campaigns, location modifiers deserve special attention. A plumber in one metro area may need a shared negative list for neighboring cities outside the service radius. A law firm may exclude practice areas it does not handle. A chauffeur or transport service may exclude jobs, salary, and training-related searches because they signal employment rather than booking intent.
B2B negative keywords
B2B search campaigns often need strong control over audience quality because high CPCs can make irrelevant clicks expensive quickly. Common patterns include:
- Student or academic intent: course, degree, lecture, MBA, thesis, case study if academic traffic is not useful
- Small-scale consumer intent: personal, home use, individual, consumer
- Entry-level templates: sample resume, beginner guide, free worksheet when you sell enterprise solutions
- Employment intent: jobs, recruiter, salary, interview
- Vendor mismatch: reseller, distributor, OEM if you are selling direct software or services
- Low-fit comparison intent: alternatives to a tool category you do not actually compete in
For B2B, not every informational query is bad. Terms like “platform comparison,” “software pricing,” or “best tools” can be high intent depending on your funnel. Negative lists should be shaped by sales feedback, CRM outcomes, and conversion tracking setup, not just click behavior.
If you compare platform behavior across networks, our Google Ads vs Microsoft Ads comparison can help frame why a negative that works in one platform may need a second review in another.
Examples
Below are example starter lists. These are not universal rules. They are prompts for review.
Starter shared list: broad low-intent exclusions
- jobs
- job
- career
- careers
- salary
- internship
- training
- course
- tutorial
- how to become
- torrent
- cracked
- customer service
- support
- login
Ecommerce example: premium furniture retailer
- used
- second hand
- Craigslist
- DIY
- how to build
- plans
- wholesale
- supplier
- manufacturer
- free
Keep under review: cheap, budget, sale. These may look low intent but can still convert depending on pricing strategy.
SaaS example: paid project management software
- torrent
- cracked
- free download
- open source
- self hosted
- tutorial
- course
- customer service
- login
- jobs
Keep under review: template, free trial, API. These may be valuable if they match the product and onboarding model.
Local services example: HVAC installer in one metro area
- jobs
- salary
- apprentice
- DIY
- YouTube
- how to fix
- parts
- supply house
- another city name
- 24 hour if not offered
Keep under review: cost, quote, near me. These often signal strong buying intent and should not be excluded without evidence.
B2B example: enterprise analytics platform
- student
- degree
- thesis
- lecture
- home use
- personal
- resume
- jobs
- salary
- free worksheet
Keep under review: case study, template, checklist. In some B2B funnels, these are top-of-funnel assets that generate qualified demand.
The lesson across all four industries is the same: do not confuse a common negative with a permanent negative. Your search term report is the final test.
When to update
Negative keyword lists should be revisited on a schedule and after major business changes. A practical review rhythm is monthly for active accounts and weekly for campaigns with high spend or broad match exposure. Beyond routine checks, update your lists when any of the following happens:
- You launch a new product, service, pricing model, or location
- You change from premium positioning to promotional positioning, or the reverse
- You add a free trial, freemium plan, wholesale line, or self-serve offer
- You restructure campaigns and need cleaner separation
- You notice rising spend with weak conversion quality in your marketing reporting dashboard
- Your sales team flags repeated low-fit leads from specific queries
- Platform features or match behavior change enough to alter query matching
To keep this resource useful over time, end each review with five actions:
- Pull the last search term window and sort by spend, clicks, and zero-conversion queries.
- Tag patterns before adding words so your lists stay organized by intent.
- Apply negatives at the right level: shared list for universal exclusions, campaign level for offer boundaries, ad-group level for query routing.
- Record why each negative was added so later audits are faster and safer.
- Recheck assisted value before blocking research terms that may support conversion later in the journey.
If you manage multiple campaigns or accounts in ad management software, build negative keyword reviews into the same operational rhythm as budget pacing, conversion tracking checks, and campaign audit templates. That keeps keyword cleanup from becoming a one-time task.
A negative keyword list by industry is most useful when it remains flexible. Use the examples here as a practical baseline, but let real search behavior decide what stays, what moves to a campaign-specific list, and what should be removed because the business has changed. That is how a simple list becomes an enduring part of keyword strategy and optimization.
