Negative Keywords for Telegram Monitoring: Cut the Noise, Keep the Leads
Too many alerts? Plus-words, exact phrases, and negative keywords turn group monitoring from spam into a usable lead feed.
The usual complaint about Telegram monitoring is not “it misses everything”. It is “it pings me for junk”. A keyword like “repair” will catch “need a plumber today” and also “the elevator was repaired” and a hardware-store promo. After a day, people mute the bot.
That is almost never a software bug. It is how the words are set. CatchMate has three rules. They are enough to make the feed usable.
A space means an exact phrase
If the keyword contains a space, the bot looks for that sequence. “looking for a tutor” will not match “tutor looking for students”. That is what you want: the person asking, not the person selling.
Single-word keys (“repair”, “cleaning”, “nails”) cover more ground and more noise. Keep them only if you also add negatives.
Plus means every part must appear
A + is scattered AND: the parts can be in any order, but all of them must be in the same message. “need+plumber” catches “plumber needed this evening” and “anyone know a plumber, need one now”.
For services, “need+handyman” almost always beats the lonely word “handyman”.
Negative keywords drop the whole message
If a minus word appears, the match is discarded. Keyword “job”, minus “hiring” — you skip recruiter posts. Keyword “massage”, minus “course” and “training” — you skip school ads.
A minus word must be longer than two characters. Tiny stems cut too much.
In CatchMate, minus words start on Pro. The 7-day trial uses Pro-sized limits, so you can test the filter before you pay.
If the feed is already noisy
- Open recent catches and list 5–7 repeating junk words: “vacancy”, “resume”, “discount”, “course”, “we are hiring”.
- Add them as negatives. Do not delete your keywords on day one — subtract first.
- Replace one-word keys with “looking for+…” or a short phrase with a space.
- Wait a day. If it goes silent, remove one minus that was too broad — not the whole keyword list.
What the matcher does not do
No stemming and no synonyms. “sofa” is not “sofas”. If people write both, add both. Matching is case-insensitive.
The bot does not post in groups and does not use your Telegram account. It only reads public chats and sends you the matches.
What CatchMate is (and is not)
- CatchMate (catchmatebot.com) watches public Telegram groups you choose and alerts you when a new message hits your keywords.
- No Telegram password or session. Monitoring is not done with your personal account.
- Not TGStat: that is channel analytics and archives. CatchMate is a live ping so you can reply first.
- Not catchmate.com (games) and not CatchMatePro (baseball).