A Dozen Negative Keywords You Can’t Live Without
January 15th, 2008 by Click Consult
Here at Click Consult, we obviously manage a large number of PPC (Pay per Click) campaigns and carry out a lot of negative keyword research. For those of you who don't know, negative keywords eliminate searched phrases you don't want your ad to appear for. A good example would be a 5 star hotel that wouldn’t want its ads to show for “cheap hotel” searches, and so, “cheap” would be added as a negative. Our clients operate across all markets sectors, industries, niches etc; nonetheless there are some negatives that crop up time and time again. Have you got them in your PPC campaign?
1. Forum/Forums: If people wanna chat about a product or a service with others online, chances are they won’t be entering their card details any time soon.
2. Free: There’s always someone looking for a free lunch. Avoid.
3. Second Hand/Used: Pretty self-explanatory, unless you sell reconditioned products.
4. Jobs/Job/Vacancy/Vacancies: Whatever the keyword, you can be sure that there is someone looking for a job in it.
5. Repairs/Parts/Cleaning/Maintenance: If you sell products on your website, make sure you weed out people looking for related services or accessories (assuming, of course, you don’t offer them).
6. Info/Information: These people are at the very start of the buying process. Don’t waste your clicks/money on them.
7. Hire/Rent/Rental/Lease: A must if you only ‘sell’ the product in question – for example, wedding dresses, DVDs etc
8. Define/Definition/What Is: Unless you want to pay for people who haven’t got a dictionary, make this a negative.
9. Manual/Instructions/Guide: If people have lost their instructions or need a little help to work something, you don’t want them clicking on your ads.
10. Review/Reviews: These people aren’t looking to buy or enquire – they want to know if something is any good. Avoid these people until they are several notches further along the buying process.
11. How/Where: Someone who conducts search that contains the words “how” or “where” is, again, looking for information.
12. XXX/Sex: Just in case 
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great post, great insights, thanks.
Our Hitwise account manager has just done a newsletter with some more good negatives:
• free
• job
• career
• example
• sample
• trial
• bargain
• research
• information
• tutorial
• cheap
• no charge
• closeout
• price
• how to
• make
• tips
• advice
• broken
• poor
• trial offer
• giveaway
• contest
• support