Negative keywords
Negative keywords are the searches you tell Google to keep your ads out of.
Bid on "kitchen renovation" and Google will also show you for "kitchen renovation courses", "kitchen renovation jobs" and "kitchen renovation ideas pinterest".
Those clicks cost the same as a real one and they will not become a quote.
Adding "courses", "jobs", "diy", "salary" and "free" as negatives closes that off.
You find them in the search terms report, which shows what people actually typed rather than what you bid on.
A shared negative list at account level applies everywhere at once, so the same exclusions don't need rebuilding per campaign.
This is ongoing rather than a setup task, because new phrasings appear every week.
What this means for you
On a new account this is usually where the first meaningful saving comes from, and it's free. The budget stays the same, it just stops reaching people who were never going to buy.
This one sits under Google Ads management.
Related terms
Want to know how this looks on your account?
I'll look at what you've got and tell you where it stands, in the same plain terms.
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