Google Ads recognizes three symbols in negative keywords: ampersands (&), accent marks (á) and asterisks (*). Periods are ignored, plus signs are usually ignored, and symbols such as ! @ % ^ = ; ~ ? and | cause an error. Quotation marks and square brackets only set phrase or exact match.
Google Ads handles every symbol in a negative keyword in one of four ways: it recognizes it, ignores it, rejects it with an error, or strips it out as a search operator. Knowing which is which keeps you from adding negatives that look right but block nothing.
Which symbols does Google recognize?
Only three, according to Google's help page:
- Ampersand (&).
socks & shoesandsocks and shoesare two different negative keywords, so add both if you want to block both. - Accent marks (á).
sidewalk cafeandsidewalk caféare also treated as two different negative keywords. - Asterisk (*). It is allowed, but Google's page doesn't describe it as a wildcard. Don't count on
shoe*to block every word that starts with "shoe".
Which symbols are ignored or rejected?
| What you type | What Google does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Period | Ignored | Fifth Ave. is the same as Fifth Ave |
| Plus sign | Usually ignored, but kept at the end of a word | blue+car is ignored, C++ is kept |
site: operator | Removed | site:www.example.com dark chocolate becomes dark chocolate |
OR and other search operators | Ignored | OR dark chocolate becomes dark chocolate |
| Minus in front of a word | That word is ignored | dark -chocolate becomes dark |
Some symbols can't be saved at all and give you an error. Google lists these among them:
,!@%^=;~?and|- parentheses, curly braces and angle brackets
- the backtick and the backslash
How do you set the match type of a negative keyword?
Quotation marks and square brackets aren't treated as symbols here: they set the match type, the same way they do for regular keywords.
- Broad match:
running shoesblocks searches that contain both words in any order. - Phrase match:
"running shoes"blocks searches that contain the words in that order, even with extra words. - Exact match:
[running shoes]blocks only that exact search, without extra words.
Match type symbols work for Search. In Display and Video campaigns, Google adds all negative keywords as broad match and you can't change it.
Two more rules from Google's documentation: negative keywords don't match close variants, so add plurals and synonyms yourself, and casing doesn't matter. Also, a negative keyword that appears after the 16th word of a long search won't stop your ad.
My advice: write negatives in plain words, add both versions whenever a symbol could vary (& and "and", café and cafe), and never paste search operators from SEO tools into a negative list. For the bigger picture, see my guide to negative keywords and whether match types still matter. To apply negatives everywhere at once, use an account-level negative keyword list.
Sources
- Google Ads Help: About negative keywords - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453972
- Google Ads Help: Add negative keywords to campaigns - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7102995
- Google Ads Help: About keyword matching options - https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/7478529