from Hacker News

Adwords’ Keyword Tool replacement story

by lauren_redgrave on 8/29/13, 11:09 AM with 34 comments

  • by costapopescu on 8/29/13, 1:31 PM

    Well its not that bad, as I first thought. Here is what I know from playing with new tool for some time:

    1. How can I see the exact match search volume? - The search number you see is actually exact match.

    2. But why are the exact match search volumes higher/lower than those in the old keyword tool? - Because KW Tool was showing the search volumes in the current month. KW Planner calculates the average per year, so that's why the numbers are different.

    3. Well, but it doesn't show the local search volume! - It does show ONLY local search volume of the country you selected in targeting. If you want to see global search statistics, then change targeting to all countries.

    4. But but... it doesn't show search trends! - Yeah it does, just hover your mouse over that small graph icon right of the keyword. These new search trends are actually far more better, cause you can see exact names of the months.

  • by andrenotgiant on 8/29/13, 1:23 PM

    Anyone complaining about how the tool got worse is not using it to improve their AdWords Paid Search campaigns, they are using it to scrape out keyword demand data for SEO.

    Don't try and lump this in with legitimate Google complaints.

  • by pkorzeniewski on 8/29/13, 11:39 AM

    I'm quite confused with the new Planner - when I searched for a specific keyword in the old Keywords Tool it gave me around 40k global searches, but when I searched for the same keyword in the new Planner, it shows 10 (ten) global searches. I don't get it, there is some new algorithm or maybe the new Planner just doesn't have all the data yet?

  • by luscious on 8/29/13, 12:50 PM

    "Growth Hacking": It's not SEO sliminess, we swear.

  • by prawn on 8/29/13, 12:24 PM

    And where before it was public, now it's only viewable when logged into an AdWords account. I used to refer clients to it for keyword inspiration when writing content for SEO purposes, but this is no longer an option.

  • by dylukes on 8/29/13, 3:50 PM

    So, on the topic of the (not provided) "data hiding" and now this... if it's just because of users using secure search, is this really as big of a travesty or a problem as its made out to be?

    To me it looks like SEO/Marketing folk acting like it's the end of the world that 50% of clickthroughs are (not provided). And for them, it may be bad as they like having that data (which they certainly didn't have a little over a decade ago).

    On the other hand though, if I'm using Google secure search, as a user, this seems like behavior that benefits me privacy-wise.

    Am I missing some aspect here?

  • by bengrunfeld on 8/29/13, 3:42 PM

    The search button says it all - "Get Ideas", not "Get Info". You can't even choose Broad, Phrase, or Exact. This is a shocking tool. I feel that in addition to its philandering with the NSA, Google is abandoning every principle it once stood for.

  • by Killah911 on 8/29/13, 12:27 PM

    What are the alternative? We couldn't have all been so complacent that there aren't any good keyword tool alternative is there? Perhaps, it's time for a google scrapper? If google won't give you the data, maybe it can be inferred?

  • by bengrunfeld on 8/29/13, 8:42 PM

    Google's post on the issue: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/3141229

    It reads like "We're screwing you, so deal with it."

  • by coin on 8/29/13, 3:57 PM

    -1 for disabling zoom on mobile devices