Google Ads search terms report, explained

The search terms report lists the actual queries that triggered your ads. Your keywords are what you asked to buy. Search terms are what people typed. Those are not the same list.

Where to find it

In Google Ads, open Insights and reports, then Search terms. Set the date range before you download. A week is enough for a routine review. A quarter is better for a first cleanup, and it is also a larger file.

Download as CSV. The file is not a clean table. Google puts a title and a date range above the header row, then the columns, then a totals row that starts with “Total:”. Cost may include thousands separators. Some cells are “--” when a metric does not apply. A parser that assumes row 1 is the header will mis-read the file.

Columns that matter for negatives

• Search term. The query. This is the candidate negative.
• Match type. How the query matched a keyword. It is not the match type you should use for the negative.
• Campaign and ad group. Where the spend happened. Useful context, not usually part of the negative itself.
• Clicks, impressions, cost. Cost is the sort key. Impressions without clicks can wait.
• Conversions. If the query converted, do not negative it because it “looks junky”.
• Currency code. So the spend is labeled correctly when the account is not in USD.

Added/Excluded tells you if the query is already a keyword or a negative. Skip rows you have already handled.

What the report does not include

It does not include every query. Google suppresses some terms for privacy. It also will not show you the queries you already blocked. That is why a weekly pass beats a single annual export: new variants show up after you block the old ones.

Performance Max and Shopping have their own search-term views. A Search campaign report will not cover them. If you only run Search, you can ignore that. If you run both, pull both before you decide the account is clean.

JunkTerms accepts the standard Search terms CSV, including the title rows and the totals line, and it accepts a pasted list when you do not have the file.