Term Exclusions

What Are Term Exclusions?

The more you trust Google’s AI in ad creation, the more important Term Exclusions become as a safety net. Without them, automatically generated copy could contain competitor names, outdated product terms, or legally problematic superlatives. Combined with Messaging Restrictions and Text Guidelines, Term Exclusions form the most granular level of brand control.

Term Exclusions let you exclude specific words and phrases from ad copy automatically created by Google’s AI. This is the most granular level of text control within AI Max for Search and Automatically Created Assets. Every term you add to the exclusion list is guaranteed not to appear in generated headlines or descriptions.

Typical use cases include competitor brand names you do not want in your ads, outdated product names, colloquial terms that do not match your brand voice, or words with negative connotations. Legally sensitive terms like superlatives (“best,” “cheapest”) or guarantee claims can also be reliably excluded this way.

The difference from negative keywords is important: negative keywords prevent your ad from showing for certain search queries. Term Exclusions prevent specific words from appearing in the ad copy itself. Both tools complement each other. Combine Term Exclusions with Messaging Restrictions for conceptual exclusions and Text Guidelines for overall direction. This ensures that AI-generated copy correctly represents your brand.