Negative keywords every Indian clinic should add to Google Ads

Every Indian clinic running Google Ads should block searches from job seekers, students, people looking for free or government treatment, buyers of medicines and equipment, pet owners, and people outside its service area. These searches look relevant to Google's matching but almost never become booked appointments. A clean negative keyword list is one of the cheapest improvements a clinic account can make.

Below are the core lists by category, specialty additions, how match types work for negatives, and the mistakes that cut off genuine patients.

Why do negative keywords matter so much for clinics?

Healthcare keywords attract many searchers who will never book. A search for a specialty also draws students, job seekers, researchers and people wanting home remedies. With broad match and automated bidding now standard, Google reaches further from your keywords than before, so negatives are how you keep spend on people who want an appointment.

The cost of skipping negatives shows up in three places:

• Wasted clicks. Each irrelevant click costs the same as a good one.
• Confused bidding. Smart bidding learns from who clicks and converts. Junk traffic, and junk form fills, teach it the wrong pattern.
• Busy front desks. Calls from job seekers or medicine buyers take staff time away from real patients.

Clinics should also measure what each lead costs once it is qualified, not just per click. ICG's public dataset puts the median cost per qualified lead at ₹1,220 for ICG-managed accounts against a ₹2,100 market median. You can see the method on our CPQL benchmarks page. Cutting wasted clicks with negatives is one of the ways to move an account towards the lower figure.

Which negative keywords should every Indian clinic add?

Start with eight categories that apply to almost every specialty: jobs, education, free or government care, self-treatment, medicines and products, equipment and suppliers, animals, and information-only searches. Add them as an account-level or shared negative list so every new campaign inherits them automatically.

Add Hindi and regional-language versions of the same ideas, typed in both scripts and in Roman letters. Many Tier-2 city searches are typed in Hinglish, and a "naukri" or "gharelu upay" search is just as unlikely to book as its English twin.

Location negatives

Location targeting decides where your ads can show. It does not stop someone in your city searching for a clinic in another city. If you serve one metro, add the names of other cities and distant localities that keep appearing in your search terms. Also set location options to people in or regularly in your targeted area, rather than people merely interested in it. That setting reduces clicks from people elsewhere who are only researching your city.

Be careful with cities that send you genuine travelling patients. IVF, oncology and cosmetic surgery clinics often draw patients from nearby towns and states. Block only the places that never convert.

What negative keywords are specific to each specialty?

Each specialty has its own irrelevant traffic. Dental terms attract dental-supply buyers and students. Dermatology attracts cosmetic-product shoppers. IVF attracts adoption, surrogacy-law and research searches. Build a short specialty list on top of the core list, and review it against the search terms report every week for the first two months.

For more on the positive side of a dermatology account, see our answer on which Google Ads keywords dermatology clinics should use.

How do match types work for negative keywords?

Negative keywords behave differently from positive ones. They do not expand to close variants, synonyms or misspellings. A negative "job" will not block "jobs". So you must add plurals, misspellings and Hindi or Hinglish variants yourself, and choose the match type deliberately for each negative.

• Negative broad match blocks a search if it contains all the negative words, in any order. Good for single words such as "salary".
• Negative phrase match blocks a search containing the words in that exact order. Good for phrases such as "home remedy".
• Negative exact match blocks only that exact search. Good for cutting one bad query without hurting related good ones.

Use account-level negatives or shared negative keyword lists for the core categories. Keep campaign-level negatives for routing: for example, adding "implant" as a negative in a general dentistry campaign so implant searches go to the implant campaign with its own ad and landing page.

Performance Max campaigns handle negatives differently from Search campaigns. Google has expanded the options over time, so check the current settings in your account before assuming a list applies.

How do you find new negative keywords every week?

Open the search terms report, sort by cost, and read the searches that spent money without bringing a qualified call or form. Add the irrelevant ones as negatives at the right level. In a new account do this weekly; in a mature account every two weeks is usually enough. Record each change so you can undo mistakes.

1. Filter the last 7 to 14 days of search terms. Sort by cost.
2. Mark each term: relevant, irrelevant, or belongs in another campaign.
3. Add irrelevant terms to the shared list, using the narrowest match type that works.
4. Route "other campaign" terms with a campaign-level negative.
5. Check call recordings or front-desk notes. A search can look fine but bring only medicine or job enquiries.
6. Note every change with the date, so you can trace a sudden fall in leads.

Search terms reports hide some low-volume searches for privacy. That is why the category lists above matter. They block the patterns you will never see one query at a time.

What negative keyword mistakes cut off real patients?

The common mistake is blocking words that sound like low intent but convert in your account. "Cost", "price", "charges", "near me", "best" and even "free consultation" can come from patients ready to book. Decide with your own conversion data, not instinct, and check new negatives against recent converting searches before you add them.

• Blocking "cost". Many patients compare prices before booking. If those searches bring appointments, keep them.
• Blocking "government" too widely. If you are empanelled under a government or insurance scheme, patients may search for that. Check before blocking.
• Blocking your own doctors' names. Rival-clinic negatives sometimes catch your own doctor's name by accident.
• Single-word broad negatives that are too short. A negative such as "kit" may block a useful searched phrase you did not expect.
• Never reviewing the list. Services change. A clinic that adds a new treatment must remove any old negative that now blocks it.

Also check your ad copy while you are in the account. Under the NMC's 6 October 2026 guidelines, clinic ads should stay factual and verifiable, without testimonials, inducements or "best" claims. Our answer on Google Ads rules for doctors under the NMC guidelines explains what changed, and an NMC compliance audit checks your ads and pages against them. This reflects the rules as of October 2026; confirm details with your counsel.

Are Google Ads still worth it in 2026, and how much does Google Ads pay per 1,000 views?

Google Ads is still worth it for most clinics in 2026 when the account is tightly built, tracked to qualified leads and cleaned with negatives. AI Overviews have changed the results page, but people choosing a clinic still click ads and call. As for "pay per 1,000 views", Google Ads does not pay anyone. Advertisers pay Google.

The "per 1,000 views" question mixes up two things. Website owners and YouTube creators earn from ads shown on their content through Google's publisher programmes. Advertisers, including clinics, pay Google. On Search campaigns, clinics usually pay per click. On Display and YouTube campaigns, they can choose to bid per thousand impressions (CPM) or per view. The price is set by an auction, so it varies by city, specialty, season and competition. There is no fixed rate.

Whether ads are worth it depends less on the platform and more on the account. A clinic with weak negatives, no call tracking and a slow landing page will find ads expensive. A clinic that tracks calls, WhatsApp chats and forms to booked appointments can decide with data.

Doctors' Google Ads examples: what does a well-protected campaign look like?

A well-protected doctor's campaign has a tight set of service keywords, a shared core negative list, a specialty negative list, campaign-level negatives that route searches to the right ad group, and factual ad copy that follows NMC rules. Three examples show how this looks for different practices.

For ad text ideas that stay within the rules, see our Google Ads copy examples for doctors. If you would rather have a healthcare-only team build and maintain these lists, our healthcare Google Ads agency service starts from ₹20,000 per month, custom-scoped to your account. You can also book a call and we will review your search terms with you.