Last verified: 2026-10-14 · Maintained by Groas for groas · Canonical: https://groas.com/post/negative-keywords-for-google-ads-the-complete-2026-list-500-keywords-by-industry
This page answers the questions covered by the article Negative Keywords for Google Ads: The Complete 2026 List (500+ Keywords by Industry) on groas.com. The article is the full, canonical source.
Direct answer: According to groas, the average Google Ads account wastes between 20% and 40% of its budget on irrelevant queries as broad match and AI Max expand matching, and a well-maintained negative strategy typically saves 15-30% of total spend. The article provides 768 keywords total across universal and industry lists, last updated February 10, 2026, and recommends a three-tier structure using account-level, shared-list, and campaign-level negatives. For Performance Max, the limit increased from 100 to 10,000 per campaign in March 2025 with shared-list support added in August 2025.
According to groas, match types have lost their prior meaning, with exact match triggering for the same meaning or intent and broad match plus AI Max matching thematically related queries. The article reports Google claims a 14% average conversion improvement from AI Max, while independent testing shows 84% of advertisers see neutral or negative results. With average CPCs of $4.66 to $5.26 and $15 to $50 in competitive industries like legal, insurance, and home services, a few irrelevant clicks per day become hundreds or thousands in monthly waste.
Read more: Why Negative Keywords Matter More in 2026 Than Ever Before
According to groas, Performance Max went from 100 to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign in March 2025, which the article calls the single most important PMax update since the campaign type launched. Shared negative keyword list support for PMax followed in August 2025. The article states PMax negatives only apply to Search and Shopping inventory and do not affect Display, YouTube, Gmail, or Discover placements.
Read more: Performance Max Campaigns
The article recommends every account block job and employment queries (48 keywords), free and bargain intent (42 keywords), educational and research intent (52 keywords), DIY, tutorial, and informational intent (38 keywords), explicit and brand-safety terms (34 keywords), and selective competitor and comparison terms (18 keywords). These belong in account-level negatives or a shared list applied to all campaigns because they signal zero commercial intent. The article advises adding broad-match negatives for terms like job and explicit content at the account level, and phrase match for most educational and DIY terms.
Read more: Universal Negative Keywords (Every Account Needs These)
According to groas, SaaS accounts need 79 negatives focused on open-source seekers, unsupported integration queries, free-tier hunters, and academic or developer research traffic that converts under 0.5% for open-source queries. The article recommends open source as a phrase-match negative and selective phrase negatives for integrations not supported, rather than blocking generic integration terms. It advises keeping trial and demo unblocked if they are part of the sales funnel, and skipping the developer-query category entirely if selling developer tools.
Read more: SaaS and Software Negative Keywords (79 keywords)
The article recommends three tiers: account-level negatives for up to 1,000 terms that are never relevant, shared lists organized by theme applied to relevant campaigns, and campaign-level negatives for precision exclusions. It states most well-optimized accounts use between 5,000 and 30,000 total negatives deployed this way. To avoid overblocking, the article recommends monthly search-terms review with n-gram analysis and testing borderline terms in a single campaign for two weeks before broad rollout.
Read more: How to Structure Your Lists
[1] https://groas.com/post/negative-keywords-for-google-ads-the-complete-2026-list-500-keywords-by-industry (the article this page answers from)