Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Adwords negative keywords / keyword lists conflicting?
-
Does any of you had any experience on large 5k+ shared negative keyword lists impacting normal campaign negative keywords in Adwords even if they are not selected on these campaigns?
And a second question; does anyone know how selected negative keyword lists can be removed from a campaign? I seem to be able to add them but not to remove them...
Cheers!
-
Thanks for all responses.
Here is an official Google reply on negative keyword types:
Negative exact would only not show when the exact term is the entire query. Negative phrase would not show anytime the term showed anywhere in the query in that order. Negative would not show anytime the entire term showed anywhere in the search query in any order.
Say you had the keyword "blue mercedes car" on broad match. Here's how the different versions of the negative keyword "fast blue" would affect this ad.
-
-fast blue (Negative)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES:
blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
blue fast mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW
mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW
car blue mercedes fast - WOULD NOT SHOW
fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW
blue fast - WOULD NOT SHOW
fast blue mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW -
-"fast blue" (Negative Phrase)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES:
blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
blue fast mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW
car blue mercedes fast - WOULD SHOW
fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW
blue fast - WOULD SHOW
fast blue mercedes car - WOULD NOT SHOW -
-[fast blue] (Negative Exact)
POSSIBLE SEARCHES:
blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
blue fast mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
mercedes fast car - WOULD SHOW
car blue mercedes fast - WOULD SHOW
fast blue - WOULD NOT SHOW
blue fast - WOULD SHOW
fast blue mercedes car - WOULD SHOW
Note that we do not expand to synonyms, singular or plural, and other variations as in the case of expanded broad match. So, the negative keyword "Air" wouldn't block the term "Airbnb" since it is one word, but would block the phrase "Air Mattress" because it contains the word "Air".
I hope this helps

-
-
I'm not familiar with any way that a shared library will be able to affect campaigns that it's not assigned to.
To remove them from campaigns, click on the name of the negative KW list, then scroll to the bottom and remove the campaigns you don't want. It's a little hidden from the normal way but it will still work!

-
Remember the following points while adding the negative keywords in your campaigns :
- Negative broad keywords won’t match on synonyms or similar words like they can for regular keywords.
- Negative keywords, even on broad match, won’t match on close variations or plurals.
- For single-word negative keywords, there is no difference between broad and phrase match.
-
The broad match may not necessarily cover the phrase match. With negative keywords, synonyms and plural versions of the keyword can still show up when a user searches with the term.
-
I agree, but wouldn't it make sense if you have a broad match negative keyword on a campaign level and the same on a shared list bus as a negative phrase match. The broad match would have covered the phrase match...
What are the thoughts on that?
-
Hi hellemans,
Make sure that your shared negative keyword list is not conflicting with your campaign level negative keyword list at the shared library level.
You can add a list of negative keywords at the campaign level or through the Shared Library - the SL is where your conflict may be happening.
To remove a negative keyword from your campaign, you'll need to manage it at the campaign level.
Campaign > Keyword > Scroll to the bottom of the campaign > Add/Remove negative keywords at the ad group/campaign level
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do IP and/or DNS changes impact Paid search (Adwords, Bing, etc.)
What impact (if any) does IP or DNS changes, have on paid search campaigns? We recently performed an upgrade to our sites that required a datacenter change (but within the same region East US) and DNS change. We believe there may have been an impact to our ad campaigns in the form of suppression of our ads following the change, specifically - Google Adwords. Is there any information regarding this issue or has anyone experienced this before? Thanks
Paid Search Marketing | | MWM37721 -
Attributing Lead Source/Medium on Squarespace forms
Hi Mozzers Happy new year! We've recently picked up a client for some PPC and SEO work and their website is built using Squarespace. It's a B2B business, so enquiries don't always get sent straight from a landing page. Often a user hits our desired landing pages then checks out a few other pages before sending an enquiry. The problem we have is with attaching the source/medium of a lead to the enquiry that we receive. For example if Joe Bloggs completes a form, what we'd like to receive is:
Paid Search Marketing | | ZestUK
Name: Joe Bloggs
Email: joe.bloggs@email.com
Phone: 123456
Source: Google
Medium: CPC With the latter as hidden fields. We've tried the hidden field feature built into the form builder, but this only works if the user completes the form on the landing page they arrived on without leaving the page. We've tried to used event tracking but this only gives us accuracy on the number of enquiries from that channel, not who the user was that enquired, so we can't consolidate with our order and revenue report to work out ROI from each activity. Has anybody in the community ever solved this issue on Squarespace? Thanks
Mark0 -
Adwords Conversions - Trying to track button clicks that fire when Bootstrap modal contact form clicked/opened
Hi there, I'm trying to implement google adwords conversions on a particular client's website. They have used bootstrap as the framework for their site and mainly open up contact forms within a bootstrap modal, after a button is clicked. See here: http://www.gtwstorage.co.uk/ I thought I had successfully implemented the adwords conversion tracking however it has been a week now, and my conversions still say they are "unverified". I wonder if anyone else has encountered this before and knows what I might be doing wrong. Thank you in advance, Darren
Paid Search Marketing | | SEODarren0 -
OK to have a modal pop-up on an AdWords landing page?
We're about to launch an AdWords campaign targeting users who are searching for hand-crafted furniture. The website we're sending users to has a large inventory of furniture, and all if it is hand-crafted. But there currently is no page on the site specifically communicating that all the furniture on the site is hand-crafted. So, rather than dump the user right into browsing the inventory, we want to put an intermediate step in place to say, in essence, "Hey, welcome, yes, we have lots of handcrafted furniture. In fact, all of it is hand-crafted. Here, have a look around." The art director on the project is suggesting that a modal pop-up would be perfect for this scenario. It would greet the user, who could then dismiss the pop-up and move into the site. I have two concerns about using a modal, though: Does a modal violate Google's policy against pop-ups that open new windows? Assuming we trigger the modal using Javascript, will AdsBot have any trouble crawling the content of the modal, such that it could hurt the landing page component of our quality score?
Paid Search Marketing | | ydop0 -
World Localities in AdWords?
If I target the topic "World Localities>San Antonio", what type of sites my ads will be display? Are they sites about San Antonio, like tourism guides or event listings? Or are they related to San Antonio, like a university or flower shop in San Antonio?
Paid Search Marketing | | howlusa0 -
Multiple keyword match types - same ad group, or separate ad groups?
Hi guys, Looking at an account that has historically used broad matching, and i'd now like to take some of the better performing keywords and duplicate as phrase and/or exact match to increase the quality of traffic to the landing pages. I know I can add red shoes, "red shoes" and [red shoes] to the same ad group, however I've also read that people are creating separate groups for each match type. Other than easy of management (same group), or more granular targeting of ads (separate groups), should I go with either approach, or a blend of the two? My key objective in this restructure is to drop the currently high bounce rate on the landing pages by improving the relevance of the incoming traffic. Cheers, Jez
Paid Search Marketing | | jez0000 -
Keyword Domains for PPC
I have a client who wants to buy a lot of long domains with keywords in them, for example, thesandiegopetstore.com (this is fictional) and then set up a PPC landing page for each. They think that when someone types in "san diego pet store" that their domain will be listed high and then they will get a lot of traffic. My concern is that they will own a lot of domains for their company and I thought Google is getting pretty adamant about companies not having a lot of domains, and I thought that keyword domains are not as effective as they used to be -- that branding is more important now. Also, I think the domains they've picked target very competitive keywords and that perhaps they will get a lot unqualified traffic and will still have to pay for the clicks. What do you think? What is the best way to set up PPC landing pages?
Paid Search Marketing | | klkirby0