A heads-up about problems with the new Google Adwords Keyword Planner tool
-
I noticed that when I was using this tool, the data in the tables would change, often by a lot (up to 50%) when I sorted the columns. (Did nothing else, just sorted.)
Since I was starting a new campaign and really needed data, I contacted Google about this and was told: "I understand that the estimates are changing in the Keyword Planner tool when you sort the data. I reproduced this on my end as well and was able to confirm that this is a known technical issue on our end." "Unfortunately the information in the Keyword Planner Tool is currently not the best source of data for your analysis."
They then went on to suggest I just test things blindly.
So, what do you do to get information about keyword traffic and ppc estimates?
-
I found out about these data result issues a few days ago, but only when I was logged into my AdWords account. I logged out, and you are then using the old and more familiar keyword tool we are all used to. The significant drawback to this is that only 100 keyword ideas are presented at a time.
Doing "blind" tests not only would be frustrating, but you will also be considering for yourself, or worse, presenting "blind" data to your clients about the best keywords to target and why.
I'm going to stay logged out until I see or read that this issue has been resolved. Hope it does soon and hope this helps you out in the short-term.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Googleweblight Traffic in Google Analytics
Google analytics showing Googleweblight traffic is paid traffic or organic traffic or anything else? If any post related to this query, kindly send that URL.
Paid Search Marketing | | vivekrathore0 -
Impressions data: Google Webmaster Tools VS Google AdWords
Dear community, I was doing some research within Google Webmaster Tools (WMT) keyword data when I noticed that the impressions within this tool are quite different compared to the keyword impression data provided by Google AdWords (ADW). Some specs about the situation: Date: December 2014 (31 days). Keyword: brand + main keyword* (e.g. amazon shoes, if Amazon would have been the client) Visitors come from: the Netherlands (>97%). Search volume: 3,8 K for this branded keyword last year (December 2013), of which >99% came from the Netherlands (source: Google Keyword Planner). Search query data: "impressions" for Google WMT (organic keyword impressions) and “impressions” for Google ADW (paid keyword impressions). Of course the ADW keyword is [exact]. So, what's wrong? The data doesn’t match, while I expected approximately the same amount of impressions assuming the keywords are: both [exact] keywords; (check! ✓) within the same period of time; (check! ✓) the Ad is being displayed "all the time" (check! ✓) the domain/page is being indexed "all the time" (check! ✓) How much of a difference is there? Organic impressions: 7,4 K (source: Google WMT) Paid impressions: 2,1 K (source: Google ADW) Note that the search volume according to Google Keyword Planner of last year is somewhere in between: 3,8K. The search volume from this tool of last December is not available just yet (but I don’t expect much difference here since Google Trends shows a steady search volume). If the difference would have been 10-20%, I wouldn't be surprised at all, but this is huge. **What could explain the differences? ** If a lot of people were using AdBlockers (they do, but not nearly as massively (around 10%)). If we would have made mistakes in AdWords: budget, bidding, targeting etc. - This is not the case, got this confirmed by the manager who double-checked the data and settings. Also: since it’s a branded keyword it’s really cheap for us and easy to get high quality scores. If we would have made mistakes regarding indexing/crawling that would have caused an extreme loss in domain visibility in the SERP's: possibly caused by robots.txt, a noindex-tag, server problems etc. This was not the case and Google WebmasterTools says the average position was 1,0 during the complete month. "Something else" went wrong during that specific period of time with this specific domain. I don’t think so because I checked multiple months and multiple other domains of other clients. These gave me the same relative results (okay, some were a bit closer: 30 K paid impressions vs 62 K organic impressions for instance, still a big difference). What other possibilities are left? The impressions from Google WMT and Google ADW are not the same, even though they are called the same and therefore suggest they should be (about) the same. AdWords just randomly fails to display and/or measure some branded ads (even though there is plenty of budget, bidding is fine and QS is 10/10). Definitions of "impressions" for both tools according Google: AdWords definition of "impressions" WebmasterTools definition of "impressions" Hope someone has some more suggestions or useful links! Thanks in advance! Ektor Tsolodimos
Paid Search Marketing | | BlueMango0 -
Adwords: Decrease mobile bid for only certain ad groups?
In one of my AdWords campaigns, I've noticed that certain ad groups consistently convert twice as badly on mobile devices as other ad groups do. Is there a way to adjust mobile bidding only for certain ad groups, or can you only control this campaign-wide?
Paid Search Marketing | | UnderRugSwept0 -
Why are some restricted items showing up on Google Shopping?
Hi there, We sell tactical gear but only "Google Friendly" items in our Google Shopping Product Listing Ads. We don't include anything that goes on a rifle, including rifle scopes. However, we see that companies like ebay and OpticsPlanet can still sell riflescopes: https://www.google.com/#q=Bushnell+3-12x44+Mil+Dot+Tactical+Riflescope&tbm=shop. There's even an article by SearchEngineLand that points this out, too: http://searchengineland.com/google-weapon-listings-shopping-search-126487. So why is it that they can sell them and we can't? What advantage do they have or what have they done?
Paid Search Marketing | | PatriotOutfitters810 -
Which landing page is used to calculate "Landing Page Experience" of a keyword in Adwords?
In Google Adwords, one ad group can have multiple landing pages, yet keywords are shared. So when I look at the keywords, they use one of the landing pages from ads, but which one? Shall we create separate ad groups and set only one landing page per group to avoid this problem? If this is the way then how come landing page is not a shared property like the keywords in ad groups? I hope someone with enough Google Adwords experience can help me here. Thanks,
Paid Search Marketing | | fguru0 -
Do Google Autofill and Instant Search affect Adwords' Keyword Tool reports?
While performing keyword research around the term "windows", I noticed the keyword "windo" gets 18,000 global monthly searches with .23 competition. Why is this? Do y'all think the Google Autofill and Instant Search features affect reports generated by using the Google Adwords keyword tool? For example, if a user starts typing a search query only to find the site they were looking for before they finished typing the search query, does Google count the partial keyword the user never finished typing into the Adwords Keyword report? I've always wondered about this. Sometimes I find it tempting to attack a misspelled keyword because of the massive search volume and low competition for that keyword. I realize that many consumers may not be very good at spelling, and this may reflect a large search volume towards a misspelled keyword. On the other hand, I see this trend of high volume, misspelled keywords many times while performing keyword research for a variety of clients. Thanks.
Paid Search Marketing | | GlobeRunner0 -
Your site is in organic results for adwords keyword - improved quality score?
Let's say I am targeting a keyword "Blue Widgets Cityname" with an AdWords campaign. My SEO landing page is coming up in position #6 in the organic results for this keyword. Because I have my website in the organic search results, does my quality score automatically improve? Conversely, my quality score could go up because the organic search results facilitate a higher CTR for both the ads and the organic results. However, I am wondering if there is a quality score algorithmic component that automatically makes my quality score go up simply because the same domain I am targeting is in the organic results.
Paid Search Marketing | | qlkasdjfw0 -
Your Google AdWords account has been permanently suspended for repeated violation of AdWords or Landing Page and Site policies in this or a related account.
My client nor I received any warning. We even had a google adwords team optimize the account and my rep does not yet know the reason for the ban. Not sure if its related but their google organic rankings dropped significantly at the same time. https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=164786 Any advice here? Do these Questions get indexed by google? I will ask my client if I can disclose the domain. Is there any way around a permanent ban? They were spending 50K per month. Is this enough to have any clout?
Paid Search Marketing | | webbroi0