Negative Keyword List to Kickstart Your PPC

Negative keywords have the ability to make or break a pay per click campaign. Your keywords may be relevant, but even targeting very specific keywords alone does not guarantee that your ad will be triggered by relevant search terms 100% of the time. Researching negative keywords should be thorough and immediate; do not wait for your campaign to run and run a search query report – it is a giant waste of money. We at In2itive Search decided to help our fellow internet marketers out and created a list of negative keywords that are essential to your PPC campaigns.  And while these might not be vertical specific (you still need to find negatives for that) they should get you started and save you a good chunk of time.

Avg
Can I
Can You
Does
How
What
When
Where
Who
Why
About
About
Age
Application
Article
Articles
Average
Book
Books
Browse
Career
Career
Careers
Certificate
Certification
Certified
Class
Classes
College
Colleges
Cost
Costs
Course
Courses
Craigslist
Define
Definition
DIY
Document
Documentation
Documentations
Documents
Download
Educate
Education
Employment
Facebook (especially on branded campaigns)
Free
Funding
Info
Information
Job
Job
Jobs
Jobs
Learn
Learning
List
Lists
Meme
My
Opinion
Opinions
Pay
Photo
Photos
Picture
Pictures
Price
Prices
Pricing
Rating
Ratings
Recommend
Recommendations
Record
Records
Require
Required
Requirements
Research
Researching
Resume
Resumes
Review
Reviews
Salaried
Salaries
Salary
Sample
School
Schools
Skill
Skills
Streaming
Tax
Taxes
Taxing
Torrent
Torrents
Train
Train
Training
Training
Twitter
Universities
University
Upload
Video
Videos
Work
Yourself
Youtube

If you are a local business and are only advertising to a small area, we recommend you negative match all other states and their abbreviations – with the exception of the Indiana abbreviation, which is IN and will prevent you for appearing on terms with “in” in them.

Alabama
AL
Alaska
AK
Arizona
AZ
Arkansas
AR
California
CA
Colorado
CO
Connecticut
CT
Delaware
DE
District of Columbia
DC
Florida
FL
Georgia
GA
Hawaii
HI
Idaho
ID
Illinois
IL
Indiana
Iowa
IA
Kansas
KS
Kentucky
KY
Louisiana
LA (Obviously, don’t use this if you service Los Angeles)
Maine
ME
Maryland
MD
Massachusetts
MA
Michigan
MI
Minnesota
MN
Mississippi
MS
Missouri
MO
Montana
MT
Nebraska
NE
Nevada
NV
New Hampshire
NH
New Jersey
NJ
New Mexico
NM
New York
NY
North Carolina
NC
North Dakota
ND
Ohio
OH
Oklahoma
OK
Oregon
OR
Pennsylvania
PA
Rhode Island
RI
South Carolina
SC
South Dakota
SD (do not use this one if you service San Diego)
Tennessee
TN
Texas
TX
Utah
UT
Vermont
VT
Virginia
VA
Washington
WA
West Virginia
WV
Wisconsin
WI
Wyoming
WY

Please note: not all of these may be appropriate to use as campaign/adgroup negative keywords, but they are definitely a good jumping off point. If you have any questions or need any help, feel free to reach out to us at any time! Good luck on your next PPC project.