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The short answer
Negative keywords do not match close variants: no plurals and no synonyms. Only misspellings and capital letters are covered. A negative for 'job' blocks searches containing 'job', not 'jobs'. Add each form you want blocked, choose the match type on purpose, and read the search terms again a week later.
Negatives match differently
The keywords you bid on reach close variants: plurals, misspellings, reordered words, even searches with the same meaning. Negatives do not, apart from misspellings and capital letters. They block the words you wrote, the way their match type says.
job, broad- Blocks
- part time job, job offers near me
- Lets through
- jobs
running shoes, broad- Blocks
- shoes for running, blue running shoes
- Lets through
- running shoe
"running shoes", phrase- Blocks
- buy running shoes online
- Lets through
- shoes for running, running shoe
[running shoes], exact- Blocks
- running shoes
- Lets through
- running shoes sale
A broad negative blocks searches that contain all its words, in any order. A phrase negative needs them in that order. An exact negative blocks only that search, with no extra words.
Writing negatives that hold
Write every form
Add the singular and the plural, and the synonyms you find in the search terms report.
Block words that are wrong anywhere
A word that is never what you sell, like 'free' or 'jobs', works as a one-word broad or phrase negative.
Use exact for whole searches
When the words are fine elsewhere but this search is not, an exact negative blocks it and nothing else.
Read the report a week later
Look for the forms that still got through, and add them.
When a negative blocks your own keyword
A negative can quietly switch off a keyword you bid on. Add 'cheap' as a negative, and the keyword 'cheap flights to Rome' stops showing for its searches. In a long list of negatives, that is easy to miss.
Before adding a negative, search your keyword list for its words. If it matches a keyword you want, narrow the negative to a phrase or an exact search.
What Optizads checks
The audit lists negatives that let their plural through and proposes the plural beside each one. It flags any negative that switches off a keyword the account runs. And Oppy never proposes a negative that would.