Search Volume Data in Google’s Keyword Tool? No You’re Not Dreaming!
Search volume data in Google’s Keyword Tool? This is some cruel joke right? Nope, see for yourself:
Saying it’s really nice that the folks at Google have changed their minds and decided to give advertisers search volume estimates in the keyword tool is an understatement! This is definitely a feature that savvy search marketers will jump all over. Not only can you get the search volume estimates for a keyword, but you can even get them for each match type and here’s the kicker: search volume data on negative keywords.
Yes, you heard right! You can now get a more accurate picture of how much of a difference in search volume there is between an exact match keyword and a broad match keyword. But even more impressive is that you can now see how much irrelevant traffic individual negative keywords in combination with the keywords you’re looking up will eliminate. Now that’s powerful!
In keeping with Google’s mantra of making advertising as relevant to their users as possible, this is a feature that advertisers can directly benefit from. Not to mention that SEOs will most likely have a greater interest in the tool as well. That said, it seems like the celebration of this long awaited feature has already begun!
For further insights into how to make the most of this tool, check out the official Adwords blog. We’d love to hear what you think about this new feature, so be sure to leave us your thoughts and comments!
Jul 10, 2008 at 10:56 am
I would rate this as the best news from Google this year. Since most of us wish to have our webpages ranked highly with Google, it’s great to have the data right from the horse’s mouth as you might say. Your suggestion about using it to evaluate negative words is excellent. Thanks for that.
Jul 11, 2008 at 9:23 am
Barry, you’re very welcome - I’m happy to share! Thanks for commenting!
I totally agree with you that this is amazing news from Google and not a moment too soon as Yahoo’s Overture keyword suggestion tool hasn’t been working for a little while now (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017542.html).
Leave it to Google once again to take an existing idea and make it even better!
Jul 15, 2008 at 10:22 am
Unfortunately, I wonder can we trust their results. I am not talking about search numbers but keywords itself being returned. Just try searching for Google or Yahoo. You won’t get any results. Then try searching for “maps”. You won’t find “google maps” among the returned results, though I am sure it should be there.
If they remove some keywords from results, who can guarantee that they don’t remove some other keywords.
Jul 15, 2008 at 11:10 am
@Goran You raise a very interesting point in that Google is not being completely transparent with the keyword results their tool returns.
Interestingly enough you can’t get search volume data or data at all for either “Google” or “Yahoo” nor does Google maps show up as you’ve pointed out, but you can get search result data for “Microsoft”.
While the above does indicate that Google filters and censors the results provided by their tool, I think most of us agree that the results provided are to be taken as rough estimates and approximations.
Just the same, it never hurts to call Google and the other search engines on any lack of transparency so thanks for bringing it up and thanks for commenting!
Feb 9, 2009 at 2:43 pm
very good info for businesses, but how accurate are these approximations?
Feb 10, 2009 at 1:34 am
@Search Engine Optimizer
The accuracy of the search volume data in Google’s keyword tool can vary quite a bit especially depending on the vertical you are getting estimates for. Accuracy varies even more greatly when selecting tighter geographical regions or languages other than English so I’d recommend taking the data even more lightly in these cases.
Just the same it is a good starting point when conducting research for new campaigns or for expanding your existing keyword lists.
Mar 14, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I often search and there are 1000’s of results displayed in the Approx Avg Search Volume column yet the data from the previous month is “Insufficient Data”.
This does not make logical senses to me as how can there be no search volume (Insufficient data) during previous months if there are 1000’s on an average month.
Do you know why.