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Negative keyword list builder: group your waste by theme, then block it once

Three hundred exact negatives with no reason attached cannot be reviewed, so they never are, and the spend comes back. Group the same waste into a handful of themes, keep the reason next to the block, and the list becomes something you can check in a minute a month. You write the themes. This tool never decides to block a word on your behalf.

✔ You define every theme ✔ Nothing auto-blocked ✔ Dead rules and conflicts reported

1. Your search terms

One per line. Add spend if you have it, tab or comma separated.

term, or term, spend, or term, spend, conversions. Spend and conversions are optional. Everything runs in this page.

2. Your themes

One per line, as Name: keyword, keyword, keyword. The keywords are matched as whole words, which is how a negative keyword behaves.

Leave this empty to see every term under an Unthemed heading. Any keyword that matches nothing is reported as a dead rule rather than ignored.

Headline

Ready
Themes matched - -
Spend in themed terms - -
Needs a decision - -

The per-theme breakdown, the exact and phrase negative list, dead rules and conflicts unlock below.

Unlock the negative list

Free

Get every theme with its spend, conversions and cost per conversion, a ready-to-paste exact negative list, a phrase negative list with the risk spelled out, the theme keywords that matched nothing, and CSV export of the whole thing.

Already unlocked? Reset the gate.

Broken Destination URL Monitor

Google does not auto-pause ads for dead pages. Advertisers often discover the hard way that money is burning on URLs that return errors. This tool checks a list of destination URLs and reports what it can detect.

Security limitation: The suite's outbound URL policy blocks arbitrary cross-origin fetches. This tool can only check URLs that are same-origin (hosting on the same site as the tool). For cross-origin URLs, it will report the fetch was blocked by the security policy. No free static tool can reliably check HTTP status codes for arbitrary destinations without a backend, and any tool that claims to do so is paper over a vulnerability.

Each URL must include the protocol (http:// or https://). Same-origin URLs will be checked; cross-origin fetches are blocked by the security policy and reported as such.

Why themes, and not a longer list

Short answer

A negative list you cannot explain is a negative list you will not review. Grouping waste by the reason it is waste turns three hundred blocks into six decisions, and each decision survives being questioned by a client.

There is a second, more practical reason. When a term you blocked starts converting, you want to know which rule blocked it, so you can fix the rule rather than remove the block and let it come back. A theme list tells you that. A flat list of three hundred negatives does not.

And a third: phrase negatives are only defensible at theme level. Blocking the phrase free running shoes is a decision about a concept. Blocking the single query free running shoes is a decision about one query. Mixing the two is how accounts end up with traffic they cannot explain.

What a theme rule is

Name: keyword, keyword, keyword

a term belongs to the first theme whose keyword appears in it as a whole word

Whole-word matching is deliberate, because that is how a negative keyword behaves in the platform. A substring rule would put care in a rule for career and quietly block converting searches.

The trap in whole-word matching

job does not match jobs. A keyword matches whole words only, so a rule listing job alone will never catch the plural. List every form you mean: Jobs: jobs, job, career, careers. When a keyword matches nothing and another keyword in the same theme did match, this tool says so and names both, rather than leaving you to guess.

For the same reason, free matches free running shoes but not freehand, and cafe will not match café — the accented spelling is a different word to a negative keyword, so it is treated as one.

Good theme names

  • Free — nobody who searches "free" is buying a 90 pound trainer.
  • Jobs — the single most reliable waste theme in most B2B accounts.
  • Repair / DIY — people who want to fix it themselves.
  • Cheap — price-first intent, which may or may not convert for you.
  • Competitor brand — usually exact negatives only.

A theme whose keywords match nothing is reported as a dead rule. Silent no-ops are how a list rots.

Exact and phrase, and why the difference matters

Exact negative

Blocks only the queries that match exactly what you typed, ignoring close variants. Adding one is reversible, the cost of a mistake is one query, and the number of impressions it removes is known. This is the right default.

Phrase negative

Blocks any query that contains the phrase, including longer queries you have never seen. This is what you want for a concept you are certain about, such as jobs. It is also what quietly removes traffic when applied to a brand name, because comparison queries mention two brands.

There is no broad negative

Google Ads offers broad, phrase and exact as match types for the keywords you bid on. A negative keyword is a different instrument, and it has only two match types: exact and phrase. There is no broad negative to add, and a file offering one is rejected on upload. The original specification for this tool asked for a selector running “exact / phrase / broad”; that third option is not offered here, because offering it would hand you a value the platform refuses.

The rule this tool uses

Exact negatives come from your data. Phrase candidates come from your theme keywords. The tool never proposes a phrase negative for a term it has not been given, because a phrase block is a decision about search behaviour the account has not shown yet.

What the Ads Editor sheet contains, and what it cannot

The export writes Negative Keywords and Negative Match Type, with Campaign Name and Ad Group Name included only when you supply them. Those two are optional because this tool has never seen your account and cannot know where the negatives belong. Filled in, the sheet is scoped and uploads as-is; left blank, the columns are dropped rather than emitted empty, since a row carrying an empty ad group name is not the same as carrying no ad group name.

Column headers have changed between Google Ads Editor versions and locales. If your version refuses the upload, rename the header row to match the template you already work in — the values are correct either way.

What zero conversions does and does not tell you

Zero recorded conversions is a candidate, not a verdict. It can also mean:

  • the conversion happened, in a phone call or a store, and was never tracked;
  • the term converts, but past your attribution window, and this report does not show it yet;
  • the term is genuinely research, and the value is in the impression share, not the click;
  • your conversion tracking is missing that action type entirely.

The habit that costs the most money

Blocking a term on one week of data. Most B2B and considered purchases have a conversion lag far longer than a week, so a term that looked dead on Tuesday converts in month two — and by then the block has taken the learning with it. Give any term at least one full buying cycle before you treat zero as a signal.

This tool therefore shows spend and conversions per theme but never ranks a theme for you. The judgement of whether a theme is safe to block is yours, and it depends on your conversion lag, which this page cannot know.

Building a list you will still maintain

  1. Start from a real report, not from a brainstorm. Pull the search terms report for a period that contains at least one full buying cycle for your product.
  2. Write five to eight themes first, before you look at the data. Looking at the data first produces themes named after individual terms, which is just a flat list with extra steps.
  3. Add spend, from the same report. Without it you cannot tell whether a theme is worth blocking, and you will block cheap noise instead of expensive intent.
  4. Review the conflicts and the dead rules first. A conflict means two of your rules disagree; a dead rule means one has stopped working. Both are cheap to fix now.
  5. Add exact negatives, run a month, then consider phrase. This ordering is the whole point of the tool.
  6. Keep the themes, not just the list. Next quarter, re-run with the same rules and the same names so the comparison means something.

Reviewing the list later

A negative list decays in two directions. Terms you blocked can become valuable, usually because seasonality or a new landing page changed the intent. And themes that no longer match anything are dead weight that hides new behaviour.

Once a quarter, re-run this with the same themes and compare. If a theme has lost all of its spend, it is safe to delete. If a theme has started converting, unblock its exact negatives and find out why.

Pairing with the other tools

  • The search term miner produces the report and scores the waste. This tool organises the result into a maintained list.
  • The ROAS calculator checks whether the conversions you are keeping are actually worth their cost.
  • The account audit scorecard takes the resulting waste share as one of its five components.

Mistakes this tool cannot prevent

  • Blocking your own brand terms from a theme that matches too broadly. Check that your brand keywords are not in a rule you are about to apply as a phrase negative.
  • Blocking a brand term inside a competitor theme, which takes your comparison queries with it.
  • Blocking a term because the report window was short. One week is not a buying cycle for most considered purchases.
  • Blocking a term that produces phone calls the account never tracked. Check the call log before you trust a zero.
  • Applying a phrase negative to a theme you only sampled. Phrase blocks apply to all accounts, all locations, all devices.
  • Forgetting that a negative applies account-wide, unless you scope it to a campaign. Most accidental damage comes from applying a list globally that was built from one campaign's data.

Scope, which is the one that bites

Short answer

A negative added at account level applies to every campaign, every location, every device. A list built from one campaign's search terms report is almost always wrong at account level, because the other campaigns were bidding on those terms deliberately.

So when you paste a list in, decide its scope first. If the report came from one campaign, add the negatives to that campaign, or scope them. Applying a single campaign's waste list account-wide is the most common way an account loses traffic it had already paid for.

What this tool deliberately does not do

  • It does not decide which terms to block. It shows you the themes and the money; you make the call.
  • It does not fetch your report. Paste the terms, or type them. Nothing leaves the page.
  • It does not apply anything to your account. There is no API connection and there will not be one.
  • It does not know your conversion lag, so it cannot tell a genuine zero from a premature one.

Where a negative keyword actually applies

Short answer

A negative added at account level applies to every campaign, every location, every device. A list built from one campaign's search terms report is almost always wrong at that scope, because the other campaigns were bidding on those terms on purpose.

This is why a negative list is not just a list. It is a list plus a decision about where it applies, and the second decision is the one that quietly costs money. Before you paste anything from this tool, decide whether it is a campaign-level list or an account-level one, and pick the narrower scope that does the job.

Two more places scope catches people out

  • Match type. Exact blocks the query and its close variants. Phrase blocks every query containing the words. Broad match on your own keywords can reintroduce the traffic a negative removed, if the negative and the keyword conflict.
  • Campaign negatives versus account negatives. A campaign negative leaves other campaigns free to bid on the term. That is usually what you want, because a term is rarely waste in every campaign at once.

What this tool deliberately does not do

  • It does not decide which terms to block. It shows the themes and the money; you make the call.
  • It does not fetch your report. Paste the terms, or type them. Nothing leaves the page.
  • It does not apply anything to your account. There is no API connection and there will not be one.
  • It does not tell you the scope to use, because the right scope depends on which campaigns are in your account, which this page cannot see.
  • It does not know your conversion lag, so it cannot tell a genuine zero from a premature one.
  • It does not stem words, because a negative keyword does not stem either, and pretending otherwise would block more than the platform would.

Pair this with the search term miner to produce the report, and the account audit scorecard to keep the resulting waste share from creeping back up.

What happens to your search terms

Short answer

They stay in your browser. The parsing and grouping run in the page, the terms are never transmitted, and there is no analytics script on this site. Unlocking the list sends your name and email so the copy can be emailed to you — not your search terms.

Search terms are commercially sensitive in a way that a spend figure is not: they show exactly who is searching for you and what they typed. Treat any tool that uploads them with the corresponding care.

Details worth stating plainly

  • No search terms are sent to any server, in either mode.
  • Nothing is stored between visits unless you copy it out yourself.
  • No cookies are set by this tool and no third-party script is loaded.
  • Unlocking stores a short-lived local token so you are not asked twice on the same device.
  • The emailed copy is the one place your list exists outside your machine. Ask and we will delete it.

Last reviewed 2026.

Negative keyword questions, answered properly

Should I use exact or phrase negative keywords?

Use exact negatives for individual search terms you have seen and do not want, and phrase negatives for a whole concept. A phrase negative blocks every query that contains that phrase, including longer ones you have never seen and may have wanted. Exact negatives are reversible and specific; phrase negatives are cheap to add and expensive to get wrong. When in doubt, add the exact negative first and revisit the phrase after a month of data.

Is a search term with zero conversions always a negative keyword?

No, and treating it as one is the most expensive habit in paid search. A term with no recorded conversions may still produce phone calls, in-store visits or conversions tracked in a system Google cannot see. Treat zero conversions as a candidate for review, not as a decision. Check the term against your own conversion lag before you block anything, and never block on a single week of data.

What is a negative keyword theme?

A theme is a group of search terms that share one reason for being unwanted, such as free, jobs, DIY, or a competitor brand name. Grouping matters because it tells you what to block and why. A list of three hundred unrelated exact negatives is unmaintainable and impossible to review. A list of six themes, each with a reason, can be checked in a minute every month.

How many negative keywords is too many?

There is no number, but there is a limit worth knowing: a Google Ads account supports a large negative list, and the real cost of a long list is the review burden, not the platform. If you cannot say why a block exists, delete it and re-add it next quarter if it returns. Stale negatives hide new search behaviour and quietly suppress traffic you wanted.

Should I add phrase or exact negatives for competitor brand names?

Exact, almost always. Competitor brand terms are where phrase negatives cause the most damage, because a phrase block on a brand name also blocks the comparison queries that mention a second brand, and the free tools pages that mention your own. Block the competitor terms you have actually seen, as exact negatives, and keep the comparison queries.

Sources and method

How the matching works

Theme keywords are matched as whole words, case-insensitively, against the normalised search term. A term is assigned to the first theme whose keyword matches it, in the order the themes are written. Terms that match no theme are collected under Unthemed rather than being assigned to whichever theme happened to be listed first.

Whole-word matching was chosen over substring matching because substring matching produces the classic damaging false positive: a rule for care catching career, or a rule for art catching party. A negative keyword does not behave that way, so the tool should not either.

What is a fact and what is a judgement

Platform behaviour, not judgement: a negative keyword added at account level applies to every campaign in the account; exact negatives block the query and its close variants; phrase negatives block any query containing the phrase.

Judgement, and yours: which terms belong to a theme, whether a theme is safe to block, and whether phrase negatives are appropriate. The tool supplies the grouping and the spend, and refuses to make any of those three calls.

Last reviewed 2026. If your own data contradicts a default here, change the default rather than the conclusion.