Keyword cleaner and negative keyword generator
Get a clean keyword list (no duplicates, no forbidden symbols) and find negatives in search terms that do not convert.
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Keyword cleaner and negative keyword generator
Result
7 entries, 5 kept, 2 duplicates removed, 0 over the limit.
| Text | Reason |
|---|---|
| blue shoes | Duplicate |
| running shoes | Duplicate |
Suggested words
| Word | Terms |
|---|---|
| free | 2 |
| course | 1 |
| download | 1 |
| factory | 1 |
| jobs | 1 |
| 1 |
How to clean keywords and generate negatives
Keyword lists come from different spreadsheets, reports and tools, and arrive messy: duplicates, mixed upper and lower case, symbols Google Ads rejects and terms that are too long. The cleaner puts everything on a standard and also groups by term, so you can build coherent ad groups.
The second tab goes the other way: it reads your search terms report, compares it with your keywords and suggests the words bringing clicks unrelated to what you sell, ready to become negatives. Everything runs in your browser.
- Paste the list. One keyword per line, or separated by commas or semicolons. Empty lines are ignored.
- Pick the cleaning options. Convert to lowercase, remove accents, remove symbols Google rejects, treat the same word order as a duplicate and remove anything over the size limit.
- Group by term if you like. Each keyword goes into the group of the most frequent term it contains, which helps you build themed ad groups.
- Generate negatives in the other tab. Paste the search terms from your Google Ads report and your keywords. The tool lists the words that are not part of your keywords, from most to least frequent.
- Review, copy or export. Choose broad, phrase or exact, review the list carefully and copy or export CSV to apply to your account.
Everything is calculated here, in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to any server and we use no third-party cookies.
What the cleanup does
The order is always the same: split the items, replace control characters and forbidden symbols with a space, remove accents and lowercase if chosen, collapse repeated spaces, drop what ended up empty, drop what exceeds the limit and remove duplicates, keeping the first occurrence. Two keywords are duplicates only if they are equal after normalization; “café” and “cafe” differ unless you ask to remove accents.
Google Ads accepts keywords of up to 80 characters and 10 words. A suggested negative is a word from the search terms that appears in none of your keywords (compared without accents or case), ignoring link words such as “of” and “for”. Google's negatives do not match plurals, synonyms or close variants, so review and include the forms you want to block.
- Size limit
up to 80 characters and 10 words per keyword - Duplicate
equal to another after normalizing (and with words in the same order, unless you ask to ignore it) - Group by term
most frequent word (3+ letters, no link words) among the keywords - Suggested negative
a word in the search terms that is not in your keywords - Broad, phrase and exact (negatives)
term, “term” and [term]
Examples
A messy list
The list “Blue Shoes”, “blue shoes”, “Running shoes!”, “buy shoes (cheap)” and “shoes blue” ends up with 4 items: the second duplicates the first, and the exclamation mark and parentheses are removed. If you tick “treat the same order as a duplicate”, “shoes blue” goes too.
Search terms that become negatives
With the keywords “blue shoes” and “buy running shoes”, the terms “blue shoes free”, “running shoes download” and “running shoes factory jobs” suggest free (2 terms), download, factory and jobs. You still have to decide which make sense for your business.
When not to negate
Whoever sells courses should not negate “course”, and whoever sells used goods should not negate “used”. The common negatives list is only a starting point: read it before applying.
Frequently asked questions
How do I remove duplicate keywords?
Paste the list into the cleaner. It normalizes each item (lowercase, spaces and symbols) and keeps only the first occurrence of each. Tick “treat the same order as a duplicate” so “blue shoes” and “shoes blue” count as one.
What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
They are terms that stop your ad from showing on searches containing that word. They cut clicks with no buying intent, such as “free”, “jobs” or “download”, and save budget.
How do I find good negative keywords?
Look at the search terms report, which shows what people actually typed before clicking. Words that appear in those terms and have nothing to do with your offer are candidates. The negatives tab does that triage and sorts by frequency.
Does a negative match plurals and synonyms?
No. Google's negatives do not match close variants, plurals or synonyms. If you want to block “course” and “courses”, include both.
Which characters does Google Ads not accept in keywords?
Symbols such as ! @ % ^ ( ) = { } ; ~ ` < > ? \ | and the comma are rejected when creating keywords. The remove-symbols option replaces those characters with a space before deduplicating.
What is grouping by term for?
Keywords that share a term usually suit the same ad and the same page. Grouping by term is a good starting point for themed ad groups, with more relevant ads and a better Quality Score.
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