Tools & Checklists · Free workbook
Specialty negative keyword lists
Starter negative keywords for healthcare Google Ads: a universal list and 13 specialty lists, with match types and reasons to review.
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Why it exists
The problem it solves
The fastest way to waste a hospital’s Google Ads budget is to advertise knee replacement and pay for clicks from people shopping for orthopaedic mattresses, or to run an oncology campaign that shows up for cancer horoscopes. It happens in almost every new account I review, because negative keywords are treated as an afterthought.
This workbook gives you illustrative starting lists of negative keywords for healthcare: one universal list for every campaign and separate lists for common specialties, each keyword with a match type and the reason it is there. They are a starting point to review against your own services and search terms, not a list to paste in blind.
Inside
What you get
- 216 starter negative keywords across a universal list and 13 specialty lists
- A match type for every keyword, using broad, phrase and exact deliberately
- A plain-English reason for every keyword, so reviewers can decide quickly
- A decision column (Add, Review, Do not add) with Review pre-set where a term could block real patients
- A summary sheet that counts keywords by list and decision
- A search term review log to record what you add each week and why
Audience
Who it’s for
Doctors, clinic owners, hospital digital teams and agencies running Google Search campaigns for healthcare services in India.
Method
How to use it
- Filter the Negative keywords sheet to the universal list and to the specialties you advertise.
- Read every row and set the Decision column, paying special attention to rows pre-set to Review.
- Create shared negative keyword lists in Google Ads (for example Universal and one per specialty) and add the approved keywords with their match types.
- Apply the universal list to every campaign and each specialty list only to its matching campaigns.
- Review search terms at least weekly, log decisions in the Search term review log, and add new negatives to the right list.
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Questions about this workbook
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Many medical words have everyday meanings: heart, cancer, kidney, ortho, eye. Without negatives, your ads show for recipes, astrology, shopping, jobs and courses, and you pay for clicks from people who will never book. Negative keywords stop that spend and also improve the quality of enquiries reaching your call desk, which matters as much as the budget.
Treat them as illustrative starting lists to review. Some terms that are waste for one hospital are real demand for another: free, CGHS, tattoo, contact lens, government hospital. Rows where that risk is obvious are pre-set to Review. Check every row against the services you actually offer and your own search terms report before adding it.
Google’s help documentation states that negative keywords do not match close variants, so excluding jobs does not exclude job. Google does handle casing and misspellings for negatives, but you need to add synonyms and singular or plural forms yourself. That is why several keywords appear in two forms in these lists.
Use negative broad for distinctive single words that never mean a patient, such as salary. Use phrase for multi-word ideas where order matters, such as orthopedic mattress. Use exact for single generic words, such as kidney on its own, where a broad negative would also block valuable searches like kidney stone treatment.
Google’s account limits allow up to 20 shared negative keyword lists per account, with up to 5,000 keywords in each list, and up to 1,000 account-level negative keywords. Campaigns can hold many more. These limits are rarely a constraint for a hospital, but check Google’s current limits page before building very large lists.