A is for Advertising

A couple of weeks ago, the Internet marketing world had been hit by what seemed to be wonderful news: Google AdWords Keyword Tool started showing actual numbers instead of vague graphs for search volume.

I have received a lot of emails from newsletters I subscribe to, informing me of the great change. One of the senders was excited enough to conclude: “it probably spells the end for services like Wordtracker.” A famous guru could not hide his joy: “Holy cow! Talk about shaking up the planet!”

Jim Morris, who is undoubtedly a keyword research authority and the founder of Nichbot.com, celebrated the breaking news on his 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.”

Mr. Morris included in his post a screenshot of 8 results the Tool returned when he had asked for keyword suggestions for the term “blogging.” Here they are: blogging, blogs, blog, blogging software, radio blog, pink is the new blog, blog search, bad girls blog. Three columns follow the keywords list: Advertiser Competition, Approx Search Volume for last month, and Approx Average Search Volume.

Prior to July 2008, these 3 columns showed a shaded green bar, which somehow represented the volumes, i.e. if the bar was fully shaded it must have indicated very high volume; an empty bar indicated no competition etc. Now, the columns of search volume include actual numbers, while the Advertiser Competition column still shows shaded bars.

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).

Same is true for “bad girls blog.” The mystery bar is half green, which might indicate moderate competition (Actually, nobody knows what it really indicates. Why doesn’t Google tell us the exact number of bidders on a certain keyword? What’s the big secret?) Anyway, one would expect at least some competition when Google paints the bar half green, right? Wrong again! Not even one ad in all the English speaking countries (I confess I didn’t try India).

It wouldn’t be so bad if Google were just a search engine. But Google charges millions of people billions of dollars for AdWords, and a smart advertiser has to rely on the data that Google gives them to make intelligent decisions regarding his/her advertising campaign. If these data are extremely inaccurate, there is a good chance that most advertisers who use AdWords are pouring a fortune into Google’s pockets to no avail.