AdWords advertisers have long had the ability to use negative keywords to limit the situations when their ads will display, and now product listing ads — rolled out in November — will have this feature, too.

Google announced the new targeting capability, saying it’s the first of more extensive targeting features that it is working on.

Product Listings ads allow merchants to bid on product-related keywords and display ads that feature their products. With the negative keyword feature, advertisers can ensure their ads won’t appear for search queries relate to products they don’t offer, for example. So, a sock retailer that specializes in cotton socks could exclude the keyword “wool,” so that a query for “socks” would trigger the ads, but a query for “wool socks” would not.

Advertisers can also use the negative keyword list feature that Google introduced in January, to manage negative keyword lists across campaigns.

Related Topics: Google: AdWords | Google: Product Search

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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