A negative keywords list is the part of a Google Ads account that does the most work once you switch on AI Max.
Google's own figure for the feature is 14% more conversions at a similar cost per conversion, and the way it gets there is by matching your ads to searches you never bid on. If you have not told the system which searches you refuse to pay for, it will find out the expensive way.
This article gives a starter list for a UK service business (a plumber, a solicitor, an accountant, a cleaning firm, a dental practice) organised by category, with notes on where each one can go wrong. It also covers the three negative match types, which behave differently from the match types on your normal keywords, and the account-level list that most small accounts never set up.
Why negatives matter more once AI Max is on
AI Max widens the set of searches your ads can show for, so the exclusions you set are the only part of targeting that still works the way it used to. Google describes the feature as expanding your existing keywords "using broad match and keywordless technology", and its help page says that once AI Max is on, search term matching is switched on for the whole campaign by default.
The early independent data was not kind. In August 2025, Ezra Sackett, Director of Paid Search at Monks, reviewed around 30,000 search terms matched through AI Max across client accounts. PPC Land reported that 99% of those impressions produced no conversions, and fewer than half of the search terms matched to any keyword at all.
That does not make AI Max a bad product. The two advertisers Google quotes in its own case studies, L'Oréal Chile and MyConnect, already ran broad match and value-based bidding before they tried it. What it does show is that the keywordless half of the traffic has no keyword list protecting it. The only thing standing between a plumber in Kettering and a click from someone searching "plumbing apprenticeship wages" is the negative list.
"In Search campaigns, negatives act like stop signs. In AI Max and PMax, they're more like guardrails." Charlotte St. Pierre, Senior Account Specialist, JumpFly
The timing matters. A negative added after a fortnight of AI Max has already paid for the clicks it should have blocked. A list added before the campaign spends anything costs nothing and blocks the obvious waste from day one.
What Google says AI Max does with your negatives
Google says negatives still apply. Its AI Max FAQ puts it in one sentence: "Negative keywords will be respected even with AI Max turned on." That covers campaign-level and ad-group-level negatives in the campaign where AI Max is on, which JumpFly's write-up confirms from account testing.
Two other controls sit alongside them and are easy to confuse with negatives. Brand exclusions stop your ad showing on searches that name a competitor, and since 27 May 2025 they live inside the AI Max settings panel for Search campaigns. Locations of interest, which are only available in AI Max, let you set geographical intent at ad group level so a keywordless match for "emergency plumber" still leans towards your area.
Brand exclusions have a catch worth knowing before you rely on them. The same FAQ says that if you later turn AI Max off, "brand exclusions will be disabled" until you turn it back on. A plain negative keyword for the competitor's name does not have that dependency, so for a small account we would rather hold competitor names in both places than trust the brand list alone.
Where to put negatives: ad group, campaign or account
For a service business the campaign level and the account level do almost all the work; ad group negatives are for shaping traffic between ad groups, not for blocking waste. Google's help pages give the limits and the paths.
| Level | What it covers | Limit | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad group | One ad group only | Not stated by Google | Campaign > ad group > Search keywords > Negative search keywords tab |
| Campaign | Every ad group in the campaign | Not stated by Google | Campaign > Search keywords > Negative search keywords tab |
| Shared list | Any campaigns you apply it to | 5,000 keywords per list, 20 lists per account | Tools > Shared library > Exclusion lists > Negative keyword lists |
| Account-level | All search and Shopping inventory in Search, Performance Max, Shopping, App, Smart and Local campaigns | 1,000 keywords per account | Admin > Account settings > Negative keywords |
The account-level feature is the one to use for the starter list. It applies automatically to every eligible campaign, including ones you create next year, and it is the only negative that reaches a Performance Max campaign. The 1,000 cap sounds low, but a service business list rarely passes 150 entries.
Put anything campaign-specific in a shared list instead. If you run one campaign for domestic customers and another for commercial, "commercial" is a negative for the first and a keyword for the second, which is exactly the kind of conflict Google warns about: negatives that overlap your regular keywords stop your ad showing.
Negative match types do not work like your keyword match types
A negative keyword only blocks searches that contain the words you typed, and it does not stretch to plurals, synonyms or close variants the way a positive keyword on broad match does. Google's page on negative keywords is explicit: "Negative keywords won't match to close variants or other expansions." Misspellings and capitalisation are handled for you. Plurals and synonyms are not, so "job" and "jobs" are two entries.
The three match types, using Google's own "running shoes" example:
| Negative match type | How you type it | Blocks | Still shows for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broad | running shoes | Any search containing both words in any order ("blue running shoes", "shoes for running") | "running shoe", "blue tennis shoes" |
| Phrase | "running shoes" | Searches containing the words in that order ("blue running shoes") | "shoes running" |
| Exact | [running shoes] | Only that search, with no extra words | "blue running shoes" |
Broad is the default when you type a bare word, and for most waste terms it is what you want. "jobs" as a broad negative blocks "plumbing jobs northampton", "jobs in plumbing" and "plumber jobs near me" in one line.
The trap is a word that has two meanings in your market. "free" blocks "free plumbing course", which you want, and "free quote plumber", which you do not. For words like that, drop to phrase or exact: "free course", "for free", [free]. The lists below mark these.
The starter list for a UK service business
Each block below is a plain list you can paste into the account-level negatives box, one term per line. Read every line against your own business first. A handyman who advertises "small jobs" must not block "jobs"; a training provider must not block "course"; an estate agent must keep "rent".
Job seekers
This is the largest category of waste for any service business that has ever advertised a role, and it is almost entirely safe to block broad.
jobs
job
vacancy
vacancies
careers
career
recruitment
recruiting
hiring
apprentice
apprenticeship
apprenticeships
salary
salaries
wage
wages
pay rate
cv
resume
indeed
reed
totaljobs
cv-library
internship
work experience
The UK job boards (Indeed, Reed, Totaljobs, CV-Library) are worth listing by name. Someone typing "plumber reed" is not looking for a plumber.
DIY, free and research
People at the top of the funnel search for the same nouns as buyers, with a verb or qualifier in front. Block the qualifier, keep the noun.
how to
diy
tutorial
tutorials
youtube
video
videos
course
courses
training
qualification
qualifications
nvq
city and guilds
degree
template
templates
sample
samples
example
examples
pdf
download
guide
wiki
"for free"
"free download"
"free template"
"free course"
[free]
Note the last five. A bare broad "free" would also kill "free quote", "free consultation" and "free survey", which are among the best enquiries a service business gets. Phrase and exact versions block the research intent and leave the buyer intent alone.
Competitors and brands
Competitor names are the one category where a negative can cost you money by being too thorough. Some accounts bid on competitor names deliberately, and brand searches for a franchise you belong to may be worth keeping. The list below is the shape; the names are yours.
checkatrade
rated people
mybuilder
trustatrader
bark
yell
yelp
trustpilot
which?
british gas
homeserve
dyno
[competitor name 1]
[competitor name 2]
[competitor name 3]
Directories and lead-resale platforms (Checkatrade, Bark, MyBuilder) sit here because a search like "checkatrade plumber" is someone who wants the directory, and your click will be cheaper on your own name. Add the plain spelling and the common misspelling; Google covers typos but not alternative spellings like "check a trade".
Wrong locations
Location targeting controls where the searcher is, not what they type. A person in Northampton searching "solicitor in Glasgow" can still see your ad. Block the places you do not serve, especially the ones that share a name with your services.
london
manchester
birmingham
leeds
glasgow
edinburgh
cardiff
belfast
scotland
wales
ireland
dublin
usa
us
america
canada
australia
india
dubai
abroad
overseas
Replace the city names with the ones outside your own area. A Milton Keynes firm would remove "london" from this list only if it actually takes London work. Inside AI Max, pair this with locations of interest at ad group level, which Google says keeps geographical intent in keywordless matches, but do not rely on it alone.
Low value
These are not always waste. "cheap" is a judgement call: a budget cleaning company might want it. For a solicitor or an accountant, the searches below rarely end in a client worth having.
cheap
cheapest
cheaply
budget
discount
discounted
voucher
vouchers
promo code
second hand
used
refurbished
"do it yourself"
If you block "cheap" and your enquiry volume halves, you have learned something about your market. Put it back and raise your prices.
Adult and irrelevant
Most of these come from AI Max matching your service noun to an unrelated meaning. "massage", "pipe", "drain", "clean", "bond" and "will" all have second lives.
porn
sex
xxx
nude
naked
escort
escorts
dating
game
games
song
lyrics
movie
film
meaning
definition
definitions
what is
what are
history
quiz
reddit
mumsnet
forum
forums
Reddit and Mumsnet belong here for a different reason. A search that names them is looking for other people's opinions, and your ad will be ignored on the way to the thread.
What not to put on the list
Do not block your own buyer vocabulary because it looks informal. "near me", "emergency", "same day", "24 hour", "quote", "price" and "cost" are the words customers actually use, and an agency inheriting an account sometimes finds "price" and "cost" in the negatives because a previous manager assumed they meant tyre-kickers. In our experience they are the searches that turn into booked jobs.
Do not add every search term that failed to convert in its first week. Google's own warning on the negative keywords page is that too many negatives means your ads "might reach fewer customers". One Monks data point of 99% non-converting impressions is an argument for a tight starter list, not for blocking everything that has not converted yet.
Do not block "jobs" if you are a handyman, a removals firm or a landscaper. "small jobs", "odd jobs" and "garden jobs" are customers. Use "job vacancy", "jobs in", "job description" and the job-board names instead.
Keep the list alive from the search terms report
The starter list buys you the first month; the search terms report keeps the account clean after that. Under AI Max, Google adds a source column to the report that shows whether a match came from broad match expansion or from keywordless matching, which is the column to sort by.
The routine has not changed much since 2012, when Andrew Baker told a UK Business Forums member with hundreds of clicks and no sales to run the search query report and "use this report to identify irrelevant search queries and then use these to build negative keyword lists". The report has a new name and a new column since then, and the job is the same.
Once a week, sort the search terms report by cost with conversions at zero. Anything over about twice your target cost per lead with no conversion goes into the shared or account list, at broad match unless the word has a second meaning. Once a month, read the keywordless matches only. That is where the new waste categories appear, because the system is finding searches no human on the account thought to bid on.
On a new account we add the starter list and the client's competitor names before the campaign spends anything, then review search terms weekly for the first two months. The first week's report is usually the most useful one the account will ever produce, because it shows what Google thinks your business is before you have corrected it.
A negative keyword added before the first click is a decision about who you want to pay for; the same keyword added after a month is a refund you will never get. Building the list before launch is table stakes for any Google Ads agency worth the retainer. If you would like a second pair of eyes on an account before AI Max goes on, our paid media team reviews search terms and negative structure as part of every account takeover; get in touch.