How to Eliminate Junk Search Terms in Google Ads (Step-by-Step)

If you've ever opened your Search Terms Report and felt that familiar sinking feeling — a long list of irrelevant queries quietly draining your budget — you're in good company. Junk search terms are one of the most common and costly problems in Google Ads, and they're easy to miss if you're not looking for them systematically.

Quick clarification before we go further: a keyword is what you add to your campaign as a targeting input. A search term is the actual query a user typed that triggered your ad. These are not the same thing, and confusing them leads to messy account management. Junk search terms are the user queries that triggered your ads but have no realistic chance of converting.

The good news is that fixing this isn't complicated. It just requires a consistent process. This guide walks you through exactly how to find, evaluate, and eliminate junk search terms — and how to harvest the good ones while you're at it. If you're wondering why your Google Ads spend keeps climbing despite decent keyword lists, junk search terms are often a major culprit.

Whether you manage one account or thirty, the workflow is the same. What changes is the speed and tooling. By the end of this guide, you'll have a repeatable process for keeping your Search Terms Report clean and your budget focused on traffic that actually converts.

Step 1: Know What You're Actually Looking For

Before you start excluding anything, you need a clear definition of "junk." Not every underperforming search term is junk — some are just low-volume or early in their conversion window. Junk specifically means queries that are structurally irrelevant to what you sell or who you sell it to.

The most common junk categories fall into a few buckets.

Wrong audience: Queries from students, job seekers, or researchers who are looking for information rather than a product or service. If you sell B2B software, "free project management tools for students" is junk — full stop.

Wrong intent: Informational queries that will never convert at the bottom of the funnel. Someone searching "what is CRM software" is probably not ready to buy your CRM today.

Wrong geography or language: Queries in languages you don't serve, or from regions outside your targeting — these can slip through depending on your campaign settings.

Competitor brand terms you don't want to pay for: Sometimes you want to bid on competitor terms strategically. But if you're not, and they're triggering your ads, that's wasted spend.

Understanding why junk terms appear in the first place helps you prevent them. Broad match and phrase match expand your reach aggressively — Google's matching algorithm interprets your keywords broadly to find related queries. This is useful for discovery, but it also means your ads can show for searches that are only loosely related to your keywords. Broad match in particular is a frequent source of irrelevant traffic, and understanding why broad match brings bad traffic will help you manage it proactively.

One important thing to understand: adding a search term as a negative keyword does not erase it from your historical data. It prevents that query from matching your ads going forward. Your past spend on that term is already gone — the goal now is to stop paying for it again.

When you can look at any search term and confidently say "this is junk" or "this might be worth keeping," you're ready for the next step.

Step 2: Open and Filter Your Search Terms Report

In Google Ads, navigate to your campaign, then go to Keywords > Search Terms. Depending on your account type and UI version, you may also find it under the Insights and Reports menu. If the path has changed since this was written, Google's Search Terms Report help page will have the current navigation. If you find the report overwhelming at first, you're not alone — here's why the Search Terms Report feels overwhelming and how to approach it.

Once you're in the report, set your date range. At minimum, use the last 30 days. Ninety days is better for spotting recurring junk patterns — terms that keep showing up week after week despite never converting.

Now apply filters to surface the worst offenders first. The most useful filter combination is high spend with zero conversions. You're looking for queries that have cost you real money without producing a single conversion. You can also filter by cost above your target CPA with zero conversions, which is a tighter way to flag terms that are definitively underperforming relative to your goals.

After filtering, sort by spend in descending order. This puts the most expensive junk at the top, so you're addressing the highest-impact problems first rather than getting lost in a long list of low-impression terms.

One thing to watch: don't filter exclusively by clicks. A search term with high impressions and low clicks still signals a relevance problem. Irrelevant impressions drag down your click-through rate, which can affect your Quality Score over time. High impressions with poor engagement is a signal worth paying attention to, even if the spend looks modest.

When you have a filtered, sorted list of search terms ready to evaluate, you're set for the next step.

Step 3: Sort Every Term Into One of Three Buckets

This is where the real decision-making happens. For every search term in your filtered list, assign it to one of three buckets. This framework keeps you moving efficiently instead of second-guessing each term.

Bucket 1 — Exclude as a negative keyword: The term is clearly irrelevant, wrong intent, wrong audience, or otherwise not worth paying for. This is your junk bucket.

Bucket 2 — Add as a positive keyword: The term shows strong buying intent and isn't already in your keyword list. You want to capture this traffic deliberately, with control over the bid, ad copy, and landing page. More on this in Step 5.

Bucket 3 — Leave it: The term is already covered by an existing keyword, it's performing within acceptable parameters, or it's too low-volume to act on right now. Leave it and revisit next session.

Three evaluation questions help you assign each term quickly.

Does this search show buying intent? Is the person likely to want what you sell, or are they researching, comparing, or looking for something free?

Does it match what you sell? Not just loosely — specifically. If you sell enterprise software, "small business free tools" doesn't match, even if the category is adjacent.

Would you pay for this click again? If the answer is an immediate no, it goes in the exclude bucket.

Watch for false positives. A search term with one conversion in 90 days on a high spend may still be junk depending on your CPA target. One conversion doesn't validate a term if the cost to get it far exceeds what you'd pay for a conversion from a better-matched query.

To use a concrete illustrative example: if you sell B2B project management software and "free project management tools for students" keeps appearing, that's a clear exclude. Wrong audience, wrong intent, and almost certainly zero commercial value for your business.

As you work through the list, mentally group similar junk terms together. All the "free" queries, all the "jobs" queries, all the "DIY" queries. You'll use those groupings in the next step to apply negatives efficiently.

When every term in your filtered list has a bucket assigned, move on.

Step 4: Add Negative Keywords at the Right Level

This is where most guides stop at "add negative keywords" without explaining the important nuance: where you add them and with what match type matters significantly. Getting this wrong means either under-blocking (junk terms keep showing up) or over-blocking (you accidentally exclude relevant traffic).

Negative keywords can be applied at three levels in Google Ads. Understanding why negative keywords matter and how each level works will help you make better decisions here. For full reference, Google's negative keywords documentation covers the mechanics in detail.

Ad group level: Use this when a term is irrelevant to one specific ad group but might be valid in another. For example, if you have separate ad groups for "project management software" and "task management tools," a term might be junk for one but acceptable for the other.

Campaign level: Use this when a term is irrelevant to your entire campaign. If you sell enterprise software, adding "free," "jobs," and "DIY" as campaign-level negatives makes sense — none of those queries will ever be relevant to any ad group in that campaign.

Shared negative keyword lists: This is the most scalable approach, especially if you manage multiple campaigns or accounts. Build lists organized by theme — "Brand Exclusions," "Competitor Terms," "Informational Queries," "Job Seekers" — and apply them across multiple campaigns at once. In Google Ads, shared negative keyword lists live in the Account Library (the path may vary by account type — check your Tools or Library menu). When you add a new term to a shared list, it applies everywhere that list is assigned. Exclusions compound over time.

Match type for negative keywords deserves its own attention, because negative match types work differently than positive match types.

Negative exact match [free crm] blocks only queries that exactly match that phrase, in that order. It's precise and low-risk of over-blocking.

Negative phrase match "free crm" blocks queries that contain that phrase in that order, with other words allowed around it.

Negative broad match free blocks any query containing the word "free" in any order. This is the default when you type a negative keyword in the Google Ads UI. It's powerful but use it carefully — adding a common word as a broad negative can unintentionally block relevant traffic.

To add negatives directly in Google Ads: select the terms in your Search Terms Report, click "Add as negative keyword," then choose the level (ad group, campaign, or list) and match type before saving.

If you use Keywordme, you can select junk terms directly in the Search Terms Report and add them as negatives with a single click, choosing the level and match type without exporting to a spreadsheet or switching tabs. All actions are user-initiated — Keywordme doesn't make changes automatically.

When negatives are applied at the correct level with the correct match type and saved, this step is done.

Step 5: Harvest High-Intent Terms as Positive Keywords

Most guides treat the Search Terms Report as a place to find things to block. That's only half the job. The same report also shows you queries that are converting — or showing strong buying signals — but aren't yet in your keyword list as deliberate targeting inputs.

When a search term converts but exists only as a broad or phrase match variation of a keyword, you have limited control over it. You can't set a specific bid for it, you can't route it to a tailored landing page, and you can't write ad copy specifically for it. Adding it as a keyword — a positive keyword — gives you that control.

To add a term as a positive keyword in Google Ads: select the term in the Search Terms Report, click "Add as keyword," then choose the ad group, match type, and bid before saving.

For match type selection, the general principle is straightforward. Use exact match for high-converting terms you want to control tightly — you're telling Google to show your ad only when someone types that specific query (or a close variant). Use phrase match for terms where you want to capture variations while maintaining some intent alignment.

Be deliberate about which ad group you assign the new keyword to. It should go into the ad group with the most relevant ad copy and landing page for that query. Dropping it into a catch-all ad group defeats the purpose of adding it explicitly.

Keywordme lets you surface high-intent terms and add them as positive keywords with match type applied directly inside the Search Terms Report — no need to open a separate Keyword Planner tab or copy-paste into a spreadsheet.

When the valuable search terms from your report are now controlled keywords with appropriate match types and ad group assignments, this step is complete.

Step 6: Set a Recurring Review Cadence

One cleanup session won't hold. Google's matching evolves, new search trends emerge, and broad and phrase match will keep finding new queries — including new junk. The only way to keep your Search Terms Report clean is to review it consistently.

A practical cadence for most accounts: weekly for active campaigns with significant spend, bi-weekly for lower-spend or more stable campaigns. The review doesn't need to be long if you've done it recently — you're only looking at new search terms since your last session.

Each review session should cover three things. First, new search terms that have appeared since your last review. Second, any spike in impressions or spend on terms that looked fine before — sometimes a previously harmless term suddenly starts getting volume. Third, the performance of keywords you recently added from the harvesting step, to confirm they're behaving as expected.

Your shared negative keyword lists are a living asset. Every session, add to them. Over time, your exclusion lists get more comprehensive, and new campaigns you launch can inherit them immediately. The compounding effect of consistent negative keyword management is one of the clearest efficiency gains in PPC account management.

For agencies managing multiple client accounts, this process gets harder to sustain manually at scale. Manual negative keyword management doesn't scale well across many accounts, which is why multi-account workflows matter. Keywordme supports multi-account and team workflows, so shared negative lists can be applied across client campaigns without repeating the same work account by account.

This step is done when you have a calendar reminder set and a documented process your team can follow consistently — not just something you'll remember to do when things look off.

Your Junk-Free Search Terms Checklist

Use this as a quick reference at the end of every review session.

1. Date range set to 30 days minimum (90 days for spotting recurring patterns).

2. Report filtered by spend with zero conversions, sorted by spend descending.

3. Every term assigned a bucket: exclude, add as keyword, or leave.

4. Negative keywords added at the correct level (ad group, campaign, or shared list) with the correct match type.

5. High-intent terms added as positive keywords with the right match type and ad group assignment.

6. Shared negative keyword lists updated with new exclusions from this session.

7. Next review scheduled on the calendar.

After running this process consistently, you can expect your budget to concentrate more on higher-intent queries, your CTR to improve as irrelevant impressions drop, and your CPA to trend in a better direction as conversion rate improves. Results vary by account, and none of this is guaranteed — but the logic is sound. Less money on irrelevant clicks means more money available for the ones that matter.

If the manual process feels slow — especially across multiple campaigns or accounts — Start your free 7-day trial of Keywordme and see how much faster this workflow runs when you can take action directly inside Google Ads without touching a spreadsheet.

Putting It All Together

The core of this process comes down to three repeating actions: exclude what's junk, harvest what's valuable, and do it again on a schedule.

Exclude junk search terms by adding them as negative keywords at the right level with the right match type. Harvest high-intent search terms by promoting them to positive keywords with deliberate match types and ad group assignments. Repeat consistently — weekly or bi-weekly depending on your account's spend level — so new junk doesn't accumulate unchecked.

The Search Terms Report is one of the most useful and most underused tools in Google Ads. Most advertisers check it occasionally. The ones who review it on a schedule and act on what they find tend to run tighter, more efficient campaigns over time.

If you want to move through this process faster, Keywordme's Chrome extension lets you do everything in this guide directly inside Google Ads — remove junk search terms, add negatives, harvest positive keywords, apply match types — without leaving the interface or opening a spreadsheet. Start your free 7-day trial (then just $12/month) and see how much cleaner your Search Terms Report looks after one focused session.