Negative keywords
Which negative keywords does a law firm need in Google Ads?
The negative keyword themes every law firm needs, how negative match types really behave, and the weekly routine that keeps the list honest.
By Santiago Alvarez, Founder, Ad Hoc Digital
Last updated
The short answer
If you read one part of this page, read this.
A law firm needs negative keywords in at least eight themes before its first ad runs: job seekers, free and pro bono help, education, do-it-yourself forms, research, other professions, practice areas you don't take, and places you don't serve. Most firms also need the other side of their cases, and other firms' names.
The list is half the job. The other half is what you leave off it. A negative is broad by default, so one careless word can block searches from people ready to hire you: "free" blocks "free consultation", "will" blocks "will I get paid", and a town name can block your own city.
After launch, the search terms report adds to the list every week. We work with law firms across the US and Canada, and also in Australia and the UK.
How negatives match
Negative match types work differently from the keywords you bid on.
A negative keyword stops your ad from showing on searches that contain it. Google gives negatives the same three match types as keywords, but they follow stricter rules.
| Negative type | Blocks a search when | Blocks | Doesn't block |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broad (the default) | Every negative word appears, in any order | "forms for divorce texas" | "divorce lawyer" ("forms" missing) |
| Phrase | The words appear together, in order | "free divorce forms online" | "forms for divorce texas" |
| Exact | The search is exactly those words | "divorce forms" | "free divorce forms" |
Google says negatives don't match close variants, so you need to add singular and plural forms and synonyms yourself: "job" doesn't block "jobs". It also says negatives do account for casing and misspellings. And a negative that appears after the 16th word of a very long search is ignored.
We send single words as broad negatives and multi-word terms as phrase. A one-word broad negative and a one-word phrase negative block the same searches, while phrase keeps a multi-word term from firing on scattered words. Google's own warning applies throughout: too many negatives and your ads reach fewer people.
The themes
Eight themes cover most of the waste in a law firm account.
These are the themes on the launch list we build for every client firm. Each one is a kind of person who types lawyer words without wanting to hire one.
- Job seekers
job, jobs, hiring, career, careers, salary, wages, intern, internship, resume, plus job sites by name. "Paralegal jobs" and "legal assistant jobs" go in as phrases.
- Free and low-cost help
pro bono, legal aid, free legal advice, free lawyer, public defender, cheap, "cheapest", affordable, low cost. If the firm itself offers legal aid work, those words come off.
- Education
law school, lsat, bar exam, course, class, degree, certification, scholarship, law student. Students search lawyer words constantly.
- Do-it-yourself and documents
diy, do it yourself, pro se, template, form, forms, sample, pdf, printable, fillable, represent myself, without a lawyer.
- Research and reference
what is, definition, meaning, statistics, news, reddit, quora, wikipedia, youtube. People reading about the law, not hiring for it.
- Other professions
notary, mediator, judge, adjuster, chiropractor, doctor, mechanic, towing, body shop, bail bonds. Injury searches in particular mix with the trades around a crash.
- Practice areas you don't take
Our master list holds more than a hundred practice terms, from adoption to zoning. We remove every term that overlaps the case type being advertised, and the rest go on the list.
- Places you don't serve
Other states or provinces and their large cities. The ad's location setting already limits who sees it, but people search for lawyers in other places all the time.
Two more themes depend on the firm. The other side of the case: an injury firm blocks "defense lawyer" and "at fault driver", a landlord-side firm blocks tenant-side phrases. And names: other firms the client tells us about, and well-known people whose divorces, trials and crashes fill legal searches.
What stays off the list
Some words look like waste and are really people about to hire you.
Because a broad negative blocks every search that contains it, the words we refuse to block matter as much as the ones we add. These stay off every launch list.
| Word | What it would block | What we do instead |
|---|---|---|
| free | "free consultation dui lawyer" | Block "free lawyer", "free legal advice" as phrases |
| cost, how much | "how much does a divorce lawyer cost" | Never block; people pricing a lawyer often hire |
| will | "will I get paid car accident lawyer" | Block "last will", "will and testament", "wills" for firms that don't do estates |
| school | "school bus accident lawyer" | Block "law school" as a phrase |
| book | "book a consultation" | Block "books", "ebook" instead |
| settlement, claim, insurance | "car accident settlement lawyer" | Watch in the search terms report; decide case by case |
| Your own towns | "[your city] dui lawyer" | Never block a city, town or county inside the area you target |
For injury firms we also keep vehicle and rideshare brands off the list: people search "uber accident lawyer" and "ford recall injury lawyer". And the firm's own names and nicknames never go on, so a lawyer named William still shows for "bill" searches.
Test before you add
Every new negative gets checked against a list of good searches first.
A negative takes a second to add and can quietly cut off a case type for months. We test each one against the searches we know are good before it goes live.
Keep a list of good searches
Your keywords, plus every search term that produced a real lead. This is the list every negative gets tested against.
Apply Google's rule to each new negative
Broad: does any good search contain all its words? Phrase: do the words appear together, in order? If yes, the negative is too wide.
Narrow it instead of dropping it
On one landlord-side account, blocking "tenant" would have killed "landlord and tenant paralegal" searches that brought about 28 leads in 3 months. We blocked "tenant rights", "for tenants" and "tenant paralegal" instead.
Check places against the target area
We once found three towns blocked on an injury account, all inside the counties it was paying to target. Every place negative now gets checked against the state's list of towns and counties.
Check sibling ad groups
A car accident campaign may block "18 wheeler", "big rig" and "tractor trailer". The day a truck ad group joins it, those negatives move down to the car ad group, or the truck ads never show.
Account, list or campaign
Where a negative lives decides which campaigns it blocks.
Google lets you add negatives at four levels. Use the widest level that's true for every campaign, and the narrowest one for anything that isn't.
| Level | Google's limit | Reaches | We use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account | 1,000 negatives per account | Search and shopping inventory in Search, Performance Max and other campaign types | Nothing by default; it hits campaigns you add later too |
| Shared list | 5,000 per list, 20 lists per account | Every campaign the list is applied to | The launch list: jobs, education, DIY, other practices, places, names |
| Campaign | No limit named on the pages we checked | One campaign | The other side of the case, services the firm doesn't offer |
| Ad group | No limit named on the pages we checked | One ad group | Keeping sibling case types from blocking each other |
Each client's list lives in the client's own Google Ads account, never in a list shared from an agency manager account. A shared list carries names and choices that belong to one firm, and it would follow them into another firm's account.
Performance Max reads negatives too, but only on Search and Shopping inventory, and Google recommends brand exclusions over negatives for brand names. Our Performance Max guide covers that campaign type.
The weekly routine
The launch list stops the obvious waste. The search terms report finds the rest.
No list predicts every search. Reading what people actually typed is how a negative list grows from a guess into a record of your market.
Open the search terms report for the last 7 days
Sort by cost. Google omits some low-volume searches for privacy, so read it for patterns, not a full list.
Mark anything that should never have matched
Other firms' names, the wrong case type, the wrong side, the wrong place, research and jobs. Note the keyword each one came through.
Pick the narrowest negative that blocks it
Often one word as broad is enough. If that word appears in good searches too, use a phrase.
Test it, then add it at the right level
Run it against the good searches list, then put it on the shared list, the campaign or the ad group.
Check the leads, not just the searches
A search can look fine and still bring callers you can't help. When the firm marks leads in the CRM, the bad ones point to searches worth blocking. Our intake metrics guide covers what to mark.
We run this weekly while a campaign is new and less often once the list settles. It sits next to keyword choice, covered in our match types guide: tight match types mean fewer surprises to block.
Examples by practice
Each practice area leaks in its own direction.
The themes above apply to everyone. These are the practice-specific negatives we add for each practice, and the traps that go with them.
| Practice | Usually block | Be careful with |
|---|---|---|
| Personal injury | defense lawyer, at fault driver, adjuster jobs, body shop, towing | settlement, insurance, uber, school bus |
| Family | divorce forms, divorce papers pdf, mediator (if the firm doesn't mediate) | cost, how much, free consultation |
| Criminal and DUI | public defender, bail bonds, dui classes, mugshots | first offense, how much, near me |
| Immigration | forms, form instructions, citizenship test practice | the visa types the firm does handle |
| Estate planning | will template, free will, diy trust | will on its own, probate if the firm handles it |
| Landlord-tenant (landlord side) | tenant rights, for tenants, tenant union | tenant on its own, eviction |
Targeting changes who calls. One IP lawyer we work with stopped getting the inventor-with-an-idea files he didn't want once we tightened the targeting and his intake. Our practice pages go further: landlord-tenant, immigration and estate planning.
Common mistakes
Where firms go wrong.
The negative keyword mistakes we see most in accounts firms bring to us.
No negatives at all
Every job seeker, student and form hunter who types lawyer words gets a paid click. Nobody credits those back.
Blocking one word that hiring searches use
"free", "cost", "will" and "school" as broad negatives quietly remove good searches. The account looks cleaner and gets fewer leads.
Blocking your own towns
A town name added to stop one bad search blocks every search with that town in it, including the ones you're paying to win.
Forgetting plurals
Negatives don't cover close variants. "job" alone leaves "jobs" open.
Adding a new case type under an old block
A campaign-level negative from last year can stop a new ad group from ever showing. Check before you launch the ad group, not after a week of silence.
Real results
What this looked like for real firms.
A firm whose case mix changed once targeting and intake were tightened, and a Google search ads launch for a new real estate firm.
Identifying details are anonymized to protect our clients. Individual result, not a promise or prediction of any specific outcome for your firm.
FAQ
Questions lawyers ask us.
Straight answers to the questions that come up most.
Which negative keywords does every law firm need first?
Jobs and careers, free and pro bono help, law school and courses, forms and templates, and research words like "definition" and "reddit". Then the practice areas you don't take and the places you don't serve. Those themes catch most of the obvious waste before launch.
Should I add "free" as a negative keyword?
Not on its own. As a broad negative it blocks "free consultation" searches, which are often people ready to hire. Block specific phrases like "free lawyer" and "free legal advice" instead.
Should I block searches with "cost" or "how much"?
We don't. In our client work, people asking what a lawyer costs are often close to hiring one. Watch those searches in the report and judge them on leads, not on how they look.
How many negative keywords should a law firm have?
Enough to block the themes and no more than you can test. Our launch lists can hold up to 5,000 terms because they include place names and people's names, but each term is checked against good searches first. Google warns that too many negatives can shrink your reach.
Do negative keywords work in Performance Max?
Yes, on Search and Shopping inventory, at the campaign or account level. Google calls them a highly restrictive control and recommends brand exclusions for brand names. Display, YouTube and the other channels Performance Max uses aren't covered.
Do Local Services Ads use negative keywords?
No. Local Services Ads are keywordless: you choose categories, areas and hours, and Google matches searches. Our Local Services Ads vs Google Ads guide compares the two.
How often should negatives be updated?
Weekly while a campaign is new, then as the search terms report shows new patterns. If you'd like someone to read your report with you, schedule a consultation, or see how we run Google Ads for law firms.
Where we do this
The services this guide touches.
What this looks like when we run it for a firm, with a demo for your practice on each page.
Sources
Where these facts come from.
Official pages we read when writing this page. Platforms and rules change, so check the current version before you act on any of it. This is marketing guidance, not legal advice.
- Google Ads Help, About negative keywords
- Google Ads Help, About negative keyword lists
- Google Ads Help, About account-level negative keywords
- Google Ads Help, Negative keywords in Performance Max campaigns
- Google Ads Help, About negative keywords (Performance Max controls)
- Google Ads Help, About brand exclusions
- Google Ads Help, About the search terms report
- Google Ads Help, Keyword close variants: Definition
Written by
Founder of Ad Hoc Digital. Leads strategy and works directly with every client firm on AI search, Local Services Ads, Google Ads and Meta ads.
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