Categorized | Industry News

Time to Say Goodbye to the Old Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Posted on 25 September 2010 by Andrei

Up until this point, even though the new GAKT version was live, Google gave you the option to use the previous one. As of today, the old tool is gone for good. The new one tends to display SIGNIFICANTLY lower keyword search volume numbers, which brings us to the question which is on everyone’s mind right now: which numbers are (more) accurate?

Before this decision, people were able to work with the old tool by clicking on the link below:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal?forceLegacy=true

As you can see, this is no longer possible.

Some people say the new interface sucks but I honestly don’t care about the eye candy or even usability component. The only thing I do care about: the search volume numbers.

The old tool included data from search partners as well, while the new one is based on Google.com search traffic only. Now it’s obvious that this brought about a decrease in search traffic numbers but what I can’t find an explanation for is the magnitude of the decrease.

What do you guys think about this change and what is your explanation for this dramatic (in a lot of cases) decrease?

Source: NamePros

29 Comments For This Post

  1. Mike Says:

    Yes, I noticed dramatic drops in numbers.

    Where did you find the old tool included data from google partner searches?

  2. Andrei Says:

    @Mike: they have mentioned this on the official blog.

    “… we’ve also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners.”

    Here’s the blog post I am referring to:

    http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/updated-keyword-tool-out-of-beta.html

  3. domainmob Says:

    I wouldn’t be surprised if they come with a new tool next year, what’s so friggen hard for them to gauge their own traffic???????

  4. Nick Says:

    Tools can’t be trusted, not even if they come from Google. They could have given two choices right from the beginning if they wanted to, google search or google search together with google search partnets. But they didn’t even though it wasn’t hard.

  5. Xdreamer Says:

    A search is still a search even if it is not made on Google’s website.They should just put both together instead of confusion..

  6. James Says:

    I found that one does not have the option to select exact searches. What is the Local Monthly Search really about? If it is not the number of times people search the exact word/phrase, then what is it? Thanks.

  7. Steroids UK Says:

    whats even scarier is the drops in local numbers my asian search term in which had 20k exact has dropped to 250.

  8. Deke Says:

    This new tool is totally worthless. I don’t believe these numbers

    I am finding examples where some domains have tripled in traffic or more. I have one that went from 70,000 to 368,000 searches now. However, I do see many that have gone down in total searches.

    Why are some of the same exact keywords listed twice? The first has numbers, the second is all zeros.

    Without Exact searches this tool can do very little for anyone. Even before using the Exact search it was still tricky, now it’s worthless.

    So, the big question: What is everyone going to use now? Word Tracker? Old Overture results?

    This really sucks.

  9. molasses Says:

    Thanks for sharing…I was confused last night, didn’t know which numbers to choose…no result had seemed to be the right one.

  10. Attila Says:

    I came across rather disturbing details about the exact search results, getting on first page and only seeing less then 2% click throughs.

    The keyword is HIV TEST and it gets over 50k exact unique searches every month. The domain in question is HIVTEST dot com – it is on first page of google / bing / yahoo.

    I don’t own this domain but was thinking about buying it. After the guy asked for a mid 5 figure price, I asked him to justify the price. He said the 50k exact searches and CPC over $2.2 USD and proudly said its on first page of ALL search engines for the exact keyword. SO I demanded stats. He claimed he didn’t have any however almost all servers have at least AWSTATS or the other stat program. Finally he coughed up the numbers and it came to less then 1k uniques a month.

    What does this tell me? That I’ve spent a great fortune buying domains partially based off flaky data. The new Adwords tool shows global 15k exact searches. From the original 2% click throughs based off the 50k to now 6% click throughs basing off the 15k.

    Still, the numbers are off by far for something thats on first page on all 3 engines in numerous countries. It should be getting at least 3-5k uniques a month minimum from my experience.

  11. JO Says:

    What happened to do no evil ?

    Google are as EVIL as they get.

    One day treating us – the people who bring them money, so badly, is going to blow up in their face …

  12. Colin Brazendale Says:

    I cannot believe the old keyword tool is finally gone. It was so much more user friendly. Adding additional keywords to your exciting keywords was so easy and duplicates was prevented.

    When searching an domain Google nice made related groups for you. This was very handy for making ad groups in Google content network.

    Why would Google take away all those nice functions of the old keyword tool?

    I lot of extra work for me. Thank you Google.

    Regards

    Colin

  13. Jawad Rafique Says:

    On the old interface when you did a search with synonyms checked, it brought back the results in groups. In the first group it showed all the highly relevant, related search terms. This made it really easy to export those keywords, and continue your search for keywords. In the new tool, it brings back all those groupings of keywords into the same list, making it very difficult to pick out the relevant keywords, and therefore find good, relevant keywords that you hadn’t thought of. It would be great if Google went back to this grouping method to help us find the most relevant keywords, and new keywords ideas.

  14. electric underfloor heating Says:

    Is there a way to tell what the top bid amount is for a keyword or key phrase in Google AdWords without bidding on it? For example: What is the current cost per click for … “Computer Peripherals”?

  15. STRATO Markets Says:

    I located that 1 does not have the option to pick out specific searches. What the heck is the Native Month-to-month Research truly about? If it will not be the variety of times people investigation the precise word/phrase, then what exactly is it? Thanks.

  16. STRATO Markets Says:

    I positioned that 1 doesn’t have the option to select specific searches. What the heck will be the Native Month-to-month Investigation really about? If it won’t be the range of times folks investigation the exact word/phrase, then what specifically is it? Thanks.

  17. STRATO Markets Says:

    I situated that 1 will not have the choice to select specific searches. What the heck is the Native Month-to-month Analysis genuinely about? If it won’t be the wide variety of instances folks investigation the precise word/phrase, then what exactly is it? Thanks.

  18. Thanh Merl Says:

    Glad it was just a dream because Google had DEFINITELY become evil, though not in a manner that anyone would expect.|VillageAdsSeo|

  19. Paul Says:

    To me, so far it sucks.

    I’ve been trying to use with Keyword Corral but the software won’t pick up any of the data from the saved CSV file, besides the Search Volume. All the other columns show up blank.

    I’m being forced to give up KC (which appears to be an excellent tool) just because “Almighty” Google, in its arrogance, decided to shove down our throats this new stupid version of its Keyword Tool.

    Too bad we don’t have a choice. If I had, I would say goodbye to Google.

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