Negative keywords for affiliates: the list to ask forNegative keywords for affiliates: the list to ask for

Yourbrand lets a content partner bid on generic searches such as “discount codes”, on one condition: it adds Yourbrand as a negative keyword. The partner does. On Sunday 18 October its ad still shows on “yourbrand discount code”. Nobody broke anything on purpose: the negative was [yourbrand], negative exact, and that only blocks the bare search.

Negative keywords are the simplest control there is, and the easiest to get slightly wrong. This guide covers how each negative match type behaves, what they don't reach, where they sit in an account, and the list to put in your terms.

How each negative match type works

Google explains the three with one negative keyword, running shoes, and the same five searches each time.

• Negative broad (running shoes, the default): blocks a search containing all the words, in any order. “blue running shoes”, “shoes running” and “running shoes” are blocked. “running shoe” and “blue tennis shoes” can still show the ad.
• Negative phrase ("running shoes"): blocks a search containing the words in that order, with anything around them. “blue running shoes” and “running shoes” are blocked. “shoes running” and “running shoe” can still show it.
• Negative exact ([running shoes]): blocks only “running shoes”, with nothing added.

For a one-word brand, negative broad and negative phrase behave the same: any search containing the word is blocked. For a name of two or more words, phrase keeps the order, so "your brand" blocks “your brand discount code” and leaves “brand your” alone. Exact is the narrow one either way.

The last row is a spacing. To Google, “your brand” is two words and “yourbrand” is one, so neither negative reaches it. That's why the list should hold every way people write your name, not just the right one.

What negatives don't reach

Positive keywords reach close variants: misspellings, plurals, abbreviations, reordered words, synonyms and searches with the same meaning, whatever the match type. Negatives don't. Google's example: a negative broad flowers blocks “red flowers” but not “red flower”.

The same Google page also says negatives automatically account for casing and misspellings, and names synonyms and singular or plural forms as the things to add yourself. It doesn't say how far “misspellings” reaches for an invented brand name, so listing the common ones costs nothing and removes the doubt.

• Spacings and punctuation: joined, spaced and hyphenated forms, “&” and “and”, with and without an apostrophe.
• Plurals and possessives of a name people use that way.
• Your web address as a search: yourbrand.example, www yourbrand and yourbrand example, which people type into the search box.
• Product and sub-brand names that people search on their own.
• Long searches. Google says an ad can still show when a negative word comes after the 16th word of a search.

Where negatives sit in an account

• Ad group or campaign. Up to 10,000 negative keywords per campaign. In Google Ads, open Campaigns, then Search keywords under Audiences, keywords and content, and the Negative search keywords tab.
• Negative keyword lists. Up to 20 per account, with up to 5,000 keywords each, under Tools, Shared library, Exclusion lists. One list can be applied to many campaigns at once, which suits a brand list.
• Account level. Up to 1,000, under Admin, Account settings, Negative keywords. They apply to search and shopping inventory in every Search, Performance Max, App, Shopping, Smart and Local campaign in the account.
• Display and Video campaigns treat every negative as broad match and consider at most 1,000, so a brand list works differently there.

For a publisher with many campaigns, a negative keyword list applied to all of them, or the account-level list, is the arrangement that survives a new campaign. A negative on one ad group doesn't protect the next campaign it builds.

Brand exclusions

Some advertisers use brand exclusions instead. They're brand lists, chosen from Google's brand library, that stop a Search or Performance Max campaign serving on searches Google associates with the brand, with misspellings and other languages included without typing them. Since 27 May 2025, adding a new brand list to a Search campaign means turning on AI Max. If your brand is in the library, your terms can accept an exclusion as well as negatives, with a screenshot of the setting as the record.

Pasting a list into Google Ads Editor

In Google Ads Editor the dash goes first: -yourbrand for negative broad, -"yourbrand" for negative phrase and -[yourbrand] for negative exact. Google warns that [-yourbrand] and "-yourbrand" are wrong. The same shorthand works in a CSV file and in Editor's tools for adding negatives. A CSV can instead carry the type in a Criterion type column, whose values include Negative and Campaign negative. Import it with Account, then Import, choosing a file or pasting the text, and check the preview before you post.

How to set it up, step by step

1. List your brand terms: every name and product name, its spacings and punctuation, the usual misspellings, and your web addresses as people type them.
2. Choose the match types to require. Phrase covers your name with other words; add exact if you want the bare search named too.
3. Write the clause into your terms: which terms, which match types, on every campaign that could show on them, and your right to see the lists.
4. Send the list itself with the terms, as plain text and as a CSV, so nobody has to build it from your description.
5. Suggest a negative keyword list applied to every campaign, or the account-level list, so new campaigns are covered.
6. Ask each publisher allowed on related searches to confirm the list is applied, with a screenshot or an export.
7. Check the code searches over the following weeks, evenings and weekends included, for any ad that should now be gone.
8. Update the list when you launch a product or change a name, and send the new version the same way.

The ordinary explanations

When an ad still shows on your name after the negatives went in, it's usually one of these.

• The negative was exact match, often because it was added from the search terms report.
• It sits on one ad group or one campaign, and the ad came from another, or from a campaign built since.
• The search was a spacing, a plural or a product name the list didn't hold.
• The search ran past 16 words, which Google says negatives may not reach.
• The change hadn't taken effect yet when the search ran, or the list was updated in Editor and never posted.
• The publisher has written permission for that search, under an arrangement that predates the list.

Round the edges shows how match types carry ads onto code searches, and the guide to paid-search rules covers the clause that requires the list.