Term
Negative Keyword List
A reusable collection of negative keywords in Google Ads, maintained at the account level and applied to multiple campaigns. Cuts maintenance overhead in large accounts.
Negative Keyword List — in more detail
A negative keyword list is an account-wide collection of excluded queries, managed in Google Ads under Shared Library → Negative keyword lists. A single list can be applied to multiple campaigns at once — changes propagate everywhere immediately. Common uses: brand negatives for generic campaigns (exclude your own brand), competitor terms, industry ambiguities (“Jaguar” car vs. animal), job-search queries (“career”, “jobs”), or free-intent queries (“free”, “diy”, “tutorial”).
Example / In practice
A furniture e-commerce shop runs three lists:
- “Free & DIY” with 80 terms like
free,build it yourself,tutorial— applied to all generic campaigns. - “Jobs & careers” — applied account-wide to keep job-seekers out of ads.
- “Brand” — applied only to generic campaigns so the brand campaign exclusively captures branded traffic.
Maintenance lives in one place — new exclusions flow into one list, not into 20 separate campaigns.
Distinction from similar terms
Individual negative keywords at campaign or ad-group level only affect that scope. Lists lift that to account level. Audience-expansion lists are the positive counterpart for search partners.
Entdecke mehr
Keyword (SEA)
A search term an advertiser targets to trigger ads. In Google Ads a keyword is not a literal user query but a trigger rule paired with a Match Type — Phrase, Exact, or Broad.
LexikonGoogle Ads account structure — from campaign down to ad group, set up right
Account segmentation, campaign types, ad groups, SKAG/STAG, match types, negatives and brand/generic/competitor — woven together.
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