How to tell your Google Ads is paying for the wrong searches, and what to exclude in Arabic

«وظائف فني تكييف الرياض»: "AC technician jobs Riyadh." A job seeker types that, not a homeowner whose AC has died in the Saudi summer. Yet an AC maintenance company's ad can show for it, and the company pays for the click. On the dashboard it's one click among hundreds; in the search terms report, read against sales, it stands out.

You're paying for the wrong searches when that report shows terms spending for months without an order or a qualified lead. The fix is negatives in every form people type, because Google Ads negatives don't cover plurals or synonyms.

Negative keywords (الكلمات الرئيسية السلبية in Google's Arabic interface) keep your ad off searches containing them. A search term is what someone typed. Platform details here are as of 24 October 2026. The full account audit is in the Google Ads audit checklist; this guide covers the Arabic negatives it has no room for.

My view: a search term isn't wrong because it looks odd. It's wrong because it doesn't sell. The path I work on runs from the market to revenue, and the ad is one step on it, not the end, so I judge each search by what it earns. And Arabic accounts leak more, because broken plurals, synonyms and two scripts multiply the forms a negative list has to cover.

A hypothetical example, carried through this guide: an AC maintenance company in Riyadh spends SAR 15,000 a month on Search and counts a qualified lead as a booked visit its staff confirm in the CRM. Over 90 days: SAR 45,000 spent, 180 confirmed bookings, SAR 250 each.

What do wrong searches look like in your reports?

The tell is spend on terms with no matching order or booking in the CRM, often one intent in several forms:

• Spend rising while orders or qualified leads stay flat.
• Top-cost terms with no sale in 90 days.
• A blocked term coming back as a plural or with an extra word.
• Performance Max spending on terms you've blocked in Search.

In the hypothetical example, job-seeker terms spent SAR 2,700. «صيانة مكيفات مجاناً» ("free AC maintenance") and «ببلاش» ("for nothing") spent SAR 1,500; "pdf" and «طريقة تنظيف المكيف بنفسك» ("how to clean the AC yourself") SAR 1,200; cities it doesn't serve, such as Jeddah and Dammam, SAR 1,800. That's SAR 7,200 in 90 days, SAR 2,400 a month, with no bookings.

Why do your ads show for searches that aren't yours?

Usually because matching stretches your keywords, and your negatives miss some forms or some campaigns.

Broad match and AI Max. Google says broad match can show ads on related searches, and AI Max widens it further. «فني تكييف» ("AC technician") is close in meaning to «وظائف فني تكييف»; one searcher is a customer, the other a job seeker.

Negatives missing other forms. A negative doesn't block its plural or its synonym: وظيفة doesn't block وظائف. And a term added from the search terms report goes in as negative exact match by default, blocking that one search while its plural, synonym and longer versions stay open.

A negative in the wrong place. Added to one ad group, it misses last week's new campaign and Performance Max.

A Conversions column that doesn't count sales. If it counts WhatsApp clicks, you can't tell which term sold. Start by checking conversions against your orders.

How do you read the search terms report against sales?

Set each expensive term beside the orders or bookings it produced, in this order:

1. Make sure Conversions counts orders or qualified leads; if it counts clicks, fix that first.
2. Open Campaigns → Insights and reports → Search terms, pick the last 90 days and sort by cost.
3. Sort each expensive term into three boxes: sold; unsold and not your intent; unsold but your intent. Only the second becomes negatives. The third is an ad, page or follow-up problem, and blocking it cuts off buyers.
4. Group each intent's forms: «وظيفة فني تكييف», «وظائف فنيين», «توظيف فني مكيفات» and "ac technician jobs" are all job hunts, so they become one line called jobs, judged on its total spend.
5. Google says it omits terms without enough search activity; block those through the intent word.

In the hypothetical example, the three-box sort saves two kinds of term. The free-inspection term «كشف مجاني على المكيف» ("free AC inspection") spent SAR 1,000 for four bookings, SAR 250 each, the account average. Competitor names spent SAR 2,100 for seven bookings at SAR 300 each, and get their own campaign. Block both on looks, and 11 bookings go.

How does a negative keyword match a search?

There are three negative match types; broad is the default, and Google says none matches close variants such as synonyms or plurals:

• Negative broad blocks searches containing all its words, in any order. وظائف تكييف ("AC jobs") blocks «وظائف فني تكييف بالرياض» but not the singular «وظيفة تكييف».
• Negative phrase, in quotation marks, blocks searches with its words in order, extra words allowed. "طريقة تنظيف" ("how to clean") blocks «طريقة تنظيف المكيف بنفسك» but not «شركة تنظيف المكيف بالرياض» ("AC cleaning company Riyadh").
• Negative exact, in square brackets, blocks that search alone. [طريقة تنظيف المكيف] doesn't block «طريقة تنظيف المكيف بنفسك».

Google says negatives handle misspellings and capitalization automatically, so skip the typos. Synonyms and plurals are where Arabic accounts leak: many Arabic plurals change the inside of a word instead of adding an ending, so وظيفة and وظائف each need a negative, as do مجاناً and ببلاش. Treat English words and Arabizi (Arabic typed in Latin letters, like "majanan" for مجاناً) as synonyms you add yourself.

Google doesn't say how negatives treat Arabic letter forms such as أ/إ/ا, ة/ه and ى/ي, or the article «ال». So reopen the report seven days after adding a negative, and give any form still spending its own.

What do you add, and where? A diagnostic table for Arabic search terms

The table ties each symptom to its cause, where to check it and what to add in the forms Google won't cover.

Symptom	Likely cause	Where to check	What to do
Job terms spend, never sell	Broad match pulls in job seekers	Search terms, sorted by cost	Account-level broad negatives, each form: وظائف, وظيفة, توظيف, jobs, job
"Free" terms spend, never sell	People wanting the service at no charge	Search terms, Conversions column fed by CRM-confirmed bookings	ببلاش as a broad negative; مجاناً and free as phrase negatives with the service: "صيانة مكيفات مجاناً", "free ac maintenance"; never مجاني or مجاناً alone if a free inspection sells
pdf, تحميل ("download"), بنفسك ("yourself")	Information seekers, not buyers	Search terms	Broad negatives: pdf, تحميل, تنزيل, بنفسك
Competitor names	Broad match treats them as related	Search terms, Conversions column	Sold: give them their own campaign. Spent twice your cost per booking in 90 days with none: phrase negative on the name
Cities you don't serve	Location settings, or a city in the search	Location settings (Presence), then Insights and reports → When and where your ads showed → Matched locations	Presence stops people outside your city; a city typed in the search needs a negative: جدة, Jeddah, الدمام, Dammam
A blocked form returns	Report additions are exact by default; plurals and synonyms stay open	Search terms after seven days	Add the new form, or the intent word as broad
Performance Max spends on terms blocked in Search	Negative sits on the Search campaign only	The "Search terms and landing pages for Performance Max" view	Move it to account level or the Performance Max campaign
Bookings fell after a new negative	Over-blocking: a broad negative on a word buyers also type	Change history, then search terms for the weeks before the change	Narrow it to phrase or exact, or remove it

How do you add negatives without blocking searches that sell?

Start with one list of terms that sell nowhere, give each negative the narrowest match that works, and reread the report after seven days.

1. Never-sell terms at account level. Jobs, pdf and unserved cities go under Admin → Account settings → Negative keywords: up to 1,000, covering Search and Shopping inventory in Search, Performance Max, App, Shopping, Smart and Local campaigns.
2. Lists and campaign negatives for the rest. Up to 20 lists per account, 5,000 negatives each, active only once applied to campaigns. Competitor names moved to their own campaign become negatives in the general one.
3. From the report. Add as negative keyword adds exact match by default; to block the whole intent, add its key word as broad.
4. Performance Max. You can add negatives to a Performance Max campaign (Campaigns → Keywords → Negative keywords), for Search and Shopping inventory only. Google warns that too many negatives can mean your ads reach fewer customers, so keep them for clearly irrelevant terms. To keep Performance Max off searches for your own brand name, use brand exclusions instead; see Performance Max for online stores.

Don't put a broad negative on a word buyers also type, such as سعر ("price"), أفضل ("best") or a city you serve.

In the hypothetical example, jobs, cities, pdf and بنفسك go on the account list; "صيانة مكيفات مجاناً" becomes a phrase negative and ببلاش a broad one; «كشف مجاني» stays open. A week later "ac technician hiring" shows up: the list covered jobs and job but not that synonym, so hiring goes in. The SAR 2,400 a month that leaked becomes available to terms that book, if they have enough searches to spend it.

When do you need someone to review the account?

Once you can't tell which term sold, every negative is an opinion, not a decision. That usually happens in one of three ways:

• Conversions counts clicks or unconfirmed forms, with nothing from the CRM.
• Several Search campaigns beside Performance Max, negatives scattered among them.
• Whoever runs the account won't show the search terms, or sorts them by clicks.

In the first case, my rule: bidding should learn from a qualified booking confirmed in the CRM and sent back to Google Ads as an offline conversion, not from raw form fills. Until then, you can't judge search terms by sales.

If none of these applies, start today: open 90 days of search terms sorted by cost, and total your costliest unsold intent across all its forms.

For an outside view, a Google Ads account audit checks conversion definitions first, then search terms and negatives; findings come within about 48 hours of read access. If your team should learn to read the report itself, see training for companies.