Google's Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, was asked if negative keywords are included in the algorithms to help train smart bidding. Ginny Marvin responded, saying they are one of the criteria the system checks for campaign and ad group eligibility.
The question was brought up in the comments section on LinkedIn where Kirk Williams asked:
Hey Ginny Marvin I’m curious if you’re able to tell us whether negative keywords are included in the algorithms to help train smart bidding?
Ginny Marvin from Google replied:
Negative keywords are one of the criteria the system checks for campaign and ad group eligibility. Unlike positive keywords, negative keywords look only at the words themselves and not the meaning. For keyword eligibility, we use technologies like Gemini to better understand the intent behind the search query, and match to the most relevant, best performing keywords. Your negative keyword strategy should aim to help prevent your ads from showing on certain queries while still enabling your campaigns to achieve their goals. link to help document.
So it does seem like they are used in some way for training smart bidding. Or maybe not?
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.