Test Driving The AdWords Keyword Tool
|
Earning money, whether part time or full time, from affiliate programs is easy, IF you know what to do. Learn a Quick, Easy and Inexpensive Way For YOU To Painlessly Create Your OWN Moneymaking Internet Business, Even if You Have NO Experience... |
On the first week of July 2008, the Internet Marketing community received great news: the Keyword Tool in Google’s AdWords started to show real numbers for search volumes instead of shaded bars.
Emails were sent to all the marketing and advertising mailing lists, giving their subscribers the good news. One of these emails predicted that “it probably spells the end for services like Wordtracker.” A well-known guru expressed his excitement: “Holy cow! Talk about shaking up the planet!”
Jim Morris, a keyword research authority, posted the following on his nichbot.com blog: “All of a sudden - there is no longer any confusion about how many times people are searching for a certain keyword phrase on Google.com.”
Jim Morris also published a screenshot of the 8 first results he got when he searched for keywords suggestions for “blogging” on AdWords Keyword Tool. The keywords are: blogging, blogs, blog, blogging software, radio blog, pink is the new blog, blog search, bad girls blog; then it shows 3 columns: Advertiser Competition, Approx Search Volume for last month, and Approx Average Search Volume.
Until July 2008, all three columns used to show a shaded bar, which was supposed to indicate the relative volumes, i.e. if the bar was completely green it supposedly indicated very high volume; half green equaled moderate volume etc. But now, the two search volume columns show actual numerical figures, while the first column, Advertiser Competition, still shows this shaded bar.
I checked the results Jim Morris got when searching “blogging.” The Advertiser Competition bar next to the keyword “radio blog” is 3/4 green - looks like a lot of competition, doesn’t it? Well, why don’t you search Google for “radio blog?” There must be tens of ads for that keyword, right? Wrong! Not even one ad! Neither when you use broad nor when you use phrase, neither in the U.S. nor in the UK nor in Canada (on 7/8/2008).
The same thing happened when I tried “bad girls blog.” The shaded bar is painted half green, perhaps indicating moderate competition (As you can see, it is hard to know what it actually indicates. The question is: why doesn’t Google reveal the real number of bidders on each keyword? Why is it a secret in the first place?) At any event, you expect some competition when the bar is half green, don’t you? But again, there is not even one ad for “bad girls blog” in all the English speaking countries.
You may ask “what is the problem? Don’t use Google if you don’t like it.” Well, the problem is that Google is not just a search engine. Google charged its advertisers over 16 billion dollars last year alone, and an advertiser must rely on the data Google provides him or her in order to set up a good campaign. If these data are extremely inaccurate, there is a good chance most AdWords advertisers are spending their money in vain.
Tags: Adwords