Notes for owners · Digital marketing
Negative keywords: the list that stops your Google Ads paying for the wrong searches
A starter negative keyword list for service trades, grouped by the kind of searcher you do not want, plus a routine for reading the search terms report and adding to it.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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A negative keyword is a word you tell Google Ads never to show your ad for. Start with words that mark a searcher who will not buy from you: job seekers, students, do-it-yourself readers, people after a product when you sell a service, and towns you do not serve. Then read the search terms report and add what you find.
Why does a service trade need one from day one?
Google decides which searches are "close enough" to your keyword. For a service like "AC repair", close enough includes "AC repair course", "AC mechanic jobs", "AC repair tools" and "how to repair AC at home". Each of those clicks costs the same as a booking enquiry. You pay for curiosity, and nobody rings.
So write the list before launch, from what you already know about your trade, and treat the first weeks of the search terms report as the second draft.
What does a starter list look like?
Copy what fits your trade and delete the rest. Use the words as customers type them.
| Searcher | Example negatives | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Job seeker | jobs, vacancy, hiring, salary, openings, walk in, career | Wants work, not your service |
| Learner | course, training, classes, institute, certificate, syllabus | Wants to study the trade |
| Do-it-yourself | diy, how to, tutorial, at home tips, video, manual, pdf | Wants to do it unpaid |
| Wrong product | spare parts, wholesale, buy online, manufacturer, price list | Wants goods; you sell a visit |
| Free seeker | free, sample, coupon, discount code | Mind the exceptions below |
| Wrong place | names of towns you do not serve | Outside your area |
| Wrong brand | brands you do not service | You cannot help them |
| Information only | meaning, definition, history, images | Reader, not buyer |
Which negatives are risky?
Some words look wasteful and are not. "Cheap", "free", "near me" and "price" can all appear in the search of a real buyer: "free inspection AC repair", "AC repair price Bhopal". If you offer a free inspection, a negative "free" removes your own customers.
So choose the match type with care. A phrase-match negative blocks searches that contain the words in that order. An exact-match negative blocks only that precise search. Use broad negatives for words that are wrong in every context, such as jobs or course. Use phrase or exact for words that can sit inside a good search: "free tutorial" is wrong, "free inspection" may be right.
How do you read the search terms report?
Open the report for the campaign, set a date range that covers real spend, and sort by cost. It lists the actual searches that triggered your ad. Work through it in this order.
- Sort by cost, highest first. The expensive searches are where the money went.
- Mark every line that is not a buyer. Mark it because the words show a different intent, not because it looks odd.
- For each marked line, pick the single word that makes it wrong, and add that word, not the whole search. "ro water purifier repair training" becomes the negative "training".
- Check the lines that did bring calls. If the same word sits in one of them, hold back and use phrase match.
- Note what you added and the date, so you can undo a mistake.
On a small account a short pass is enough. If your spend is a few hundred rupees a day, the same few wasteful words keep coming back.
An invented example: a water purifier service business in Bhopal
Say a Bhopal firm repairs and services RO water purifiers and runs ads on "ro service bhopal" and "water purifier repair". After the first spend, the search terms show "ro service engineer jobs bhopal", "ro membrane wholesale", "ro water purifier service course", "ro not working how to fix", and a rival brand's service centre number.
It adds negatives: jobs, course, wholesale, "how to fix" as phrase, and the rival brand's name, since it does not service that brand. It keeps "near me" and "price", which appear in lines that rang.
Its mistake in the first round was adding "free" because one search said "free ro service". That blocked a good search, "free water testing with ro service", which was its own offer. It removes "free" and adds "free tutorial" and "free download" as phrase negatives instead. A fortnight later the report shows new offenders: "ro plant", an industrial product it does not handle, and "ro water purifier customer care", which belongs to the manufacturer. It adds both.
What do you do when the report is long?
If the report runs to hundreds of lines, sort by cost and handle the top thirty. Ignore the long tail of single clicks, because a pattern shows in the top thirty. When spend is very small, wait until you have enough to see repeats.
Tie the list to the structure of the account. If you run separate campaigns for separate services, a word wrong in one may be right in another. "Installation" is wrong for a repair campaign and right for an installation campaign, so use campaign-level negatives for those. A fuller layout is in your first Google Ads account. Negatives do not fix a weak page, which is the subject of why cost per click is high.
What to do this week
Keep one sheet with three columns: the negative, the match type, and the date added with the reason. Open your search terms report today, mark the lines that are not buyers, and enter the first ten. If someone else ever takes over the account, the sheet is the memory. Our Google Ads service is described on its own page, the marketing hub lists the wider work, and for help with the first read of your report, tell us what you need.
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