This is a major development. Jim, when can we expect to see these numbers reflected on Nichebot's pages? I am a very happy subscriber. Thanks.

Yet another reason I kick myself every time I see Google's stock prices. They do listen. They just don't always let on that they are listening.

Hey Jim,
Jerry West has already done some comparisions of the new Google data to actual traffic data. From what he can tell, Google is over-inflating the numbers by approximately a factor of two. But even with the search counts doubled, it's still a great leap forward for keyword research. Keyword researches can simply set up a formula to divide the search count numbers by 2 to get a more accurate picture.

Awesome! I was just planning to do some new market research too. Thank you Google!

(Now I wonder if I'll be able to see how many people are searching for *************.com, my new website…)

This is pretty cool. And a surprise! We can all use a little more ammunition in our niche research, especially us newbies who are still rather clueless.

This is really interesting news. It is going to have a huge impact on niche marketers and affiliate marketers. Whether you are making a website to sell from or using pay per click, you can use this information.

Next stop is to give this a Digg, Stumble, and searchle it so maybe I can be first.

Thanks for the update.
Rocque

Its very helpful that google has finally released official figures on thier search results. It makes more accurate analysis for keywords and would somehow help improve earnings.

Hey Jim,

I can tell you the numbers for me appear to be way off. I can check this against my adwords impressions. one keyword I have shows 9900 for June volume but I can tell you its not even 1000, and even with broad match, I might only get 2000 impressions for this keyword.

And for another, it doesnt take in the order of the word, for example, red shoes and shoes red show the same volume and once again, waaaayyyyy inflated.

I then looked at a different site and checked a few words I am #1 for and once again, waaayy over inflated. The numbers would show i am only getting 1% of the clicks at the #1 position, which we know isnt the case.

Curious to see how others are seeing this.

Is it publicly available via an API from Google yet?

Hummm…why now? What is Goggle up to? It almost reminds me how a sale goes up to liquidate old inventory before new merchandise comes on board. Google does everything for a reason. While I cannot initially see anything bad about this something is up.

Jim,

Good coverage of this "hidden information". It's interesting to note that Google didn't do a press release or any media release about this important information.

This soft release of internal details proves the navigating Google products and services, especially PPC, is more art than science.

On another note, just got Chris X's Google Nemesis, its' a little limited, however the ease of use and quick page building save lots of time. I would recommend it for intermediate users of Adwords.

Newbies would spend too much time trying to get out of the
dashboard.

Just wondering if Nichebot will work with it?

Thanks for keeping us informed!

Anthony Whyms

Moving4ward Marketing
http://Moving4ward4Profit.4t.com

Can you believe it? No more estimations and extrapolations from comparing my search volume to the green bars. I love it!

Thanks for the update Jim. It is hard to believe the beast has broken the silence. Now we have an even better judge for natural search as well. Love it!

Now we have pretty much exact numbers from the horses mouth and the tremendous amount or traffic activity at Google.

Long live long tail!

TL

[…] as Nichebot owner and founder, Jim Morris, says on his blog post, expect to see these numbers in […]

This looks like a huge asset for keyword evaluation even on websites keywords. I am sure this will change a lot of tools out there.

hey jim. your's is the 4th email i've gotten today about googles new keyword tool. if you want to read a top notch article on this subject go over her and copy this article at www.johncow.com "what you need to know". still enjoyed your article on the same subject. thank you. jerome whittier

Thank you very much for this notification - this is indeed fantastic news! The mysterious green bars are no longer so mysterious.

You should add a link to their external keyword tool in your post.

Hi Jim,

Its truly amazing.

You are the first person to share this with me in this entire internet.

Thanks Kudo's to you..
-Gaj

P.S: Hope you will remember me , I had good time meeting with you and talking to you during last Affiliate Incubator event. In fact we had good dinner together with Jeremy Burns, Rod, you and me. I have been following your newsletter very closely.

This was long overdue….wonder what the big deal was in showing the numbers…..anyway its good news for all of us!

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the head About 30 minutes before I saw your mail, I was actually on Google keyword and I thought (to be honest with you) that a bug was affecting my laptop.

Hey, i used this keyword last week and I did not see anything like this - raw data starring me in the face?

Anyway, as I refresh and searched for more keywords on multiple pages I fully realized it was real. However, I have some fears:

1) Has this really come to stay?

2) Can we totally depend/trust this data as the real numbers being search on Google?

3) In some of the search results, you see either under Under eithApprox Search Volume: June Help or Approx Avg Search Volume: "Insufficient Data"

Jim what does this mean?

Will be glad to hear from you.

Jim,

This is soooo great and so strange.

Only 2 days ago, I wrote Google through a form they
had to get feedback on their search tool.

I told them they had a great tool but the only way to
make it really work for users was to have search counts.

I went on and on about how much it would help the end
user. And how I knew it was "classified company info"
but they could figure out a way to do it without
giving out their exact search numbers.

So now it is strange that 2 days later they add search
counts.
Maybe enough other people were telling them the same thing
and it just took enough people to tell them.

After all, Google has always tried to do the best thing
for the user. Even when they slapped a few times, it was
for the users.

Anyway, I am so excited!! So, so excited that I am
headed to nichebot to try it out. Or is it on Nichebot
yet??

Thanks to all those out there who were writing and aggravating Google as much as I was.

Tammy

This new information begs the question - How close are these estimates? I have already started reviewing recent keyword data and it's obvious: Google is only providing estimates, not actual data.

If you research a keyword phrase with enough related phrases and synonyms, you will see estimate numbers repeated for different phrases - almost pattern like.

It's not a straight multiplier to their previous decimal values - but maybe like PageRank, a logarithmic scale.

Either way, Wordtracker has to be nervous - why keep a Wordtracker subscription when Google is providing estimated counts?

Hello- thanks for this. Very helpful
I hope you'll send a mass email after you've checked Google's results against your log.
Nathan

this is very big news.

I noticed this today as well. After struggling for some time trying to get a search count on some obscure words I gave up and decided to use the external tool because a .2 or .3 is better than seeing a 0 result coming from the Wordtracker database and Keyword Discovery wasn't that much better.

Holy crap! Keyword nirvana. The numbers look right for my keywords.

As most of the online marketing community I commend Google for releasing this information. So many SEO's bad mouth Google but I say they really do listen to what the webmasters are talking about.

This adds a lot more clarity for when conducting keyword research.

Will nichebot be updating their tool?

Thanks for informing us about it, I haven't used it for a while. It is a great new knowing the searches in numbers instead of just bars.

Thanks for spotting that for us… it's late here in France, but tomorrow I going straight into reviewing how I how weredoing for a couple focal sites. It seems that at least part of the darkness has been lifted.

I never thought I would see it. Hopefully this will be available soon in Nichebot!

Chris

Wow, Jim, you're always the first on the block!

I can see we're all going to a little busy in the next couple days. Thanks for pointing out the 'by country' search. I never saw that before.

this is great news. now we can go to google for our search count volume for our keywords or keyword phrases.

It does not seem to differentiate between "exact match" and broad match. Since this is a PPC tool, you still need to consider the results may be skewed with "broad" data. Unless I missed that info?

this is a great tool and about time after overture dropped theirs. regards double glazing man

This will help anyone who is serious about their keyword research. It has already changed some of your plans for future articles we will be writing. Thanks!

Thanks, Jim, for this helpful information. Makes one wonder what else is going on in Google.

That is just amazing. That will make so many things so much easier. Frankly, I'm dumbfounded that they did it, but glad.

Jim, thanks for getting the info out so quickly. I had to go see it for myself.

Jim, Iam i glad to see this,it should reduce my reseach time
to hours not days. Thanks for the info.

Hi Jim, its fabulous news indeed. Google has made life easier for keyword researchers!

Hello Mr Morris, Google keeping the search numbers secret has been a real pain in the you know where! Their "unveiling act" is like windows opening and fresh air gushing in. It's a most welcome act on the part of Google and also Mr Morris (for letting us know about this latest happening).

WOW! nice! that was a huge help in finding more options for keywording my Fine Art Prints. It's hard enough to find the right keywords - trying to figure out what the masses would call your product - without getting any help from the big G.

THANKS for the heads-up, Jim!

Tk

@SEOImage, the tool actually does allow you to select Broad, Phrase, Exact or Negative. AFTER you run the search on keywords, look at top, right of the results list and you'll see a drop-down menu. Make your selection and the screen will refresh with the new data. There's also a drop-down menu to select which columns of data you would like to see, but again, only after you run your search.

Jim, thanks for the heads up!

I find if I change the match type (broad, exact, phrase) then the estimates change correspondingly. To compare with wordtracker results you would need to use the Google [exact match] estimates - haven't tried that yet, but soon!

I did a quick check on a keyword for which Ive had a #1 position on Google for some time…it looks like it matches up reasonably well.

For the month of June I received 636 visits on that exact keyword phrase - 534 of those from Google.

The Google approx search volume for the month of June on the *exact match* of that same keyword was 1300.

So doing the math, this is telling me that my #1 position drew 534/1300 = 41% of the searches on that keyword. Seems a little high to me, but it's certainly within the realm of believability.

Thanks for breaking the news to me. I am very interested to keep up with further evaluations of this service.

That is pretty incredible news. Ever since the death of Overture the Google KW tool is all that was made available. It was always excellent in its suggestions as they often linked closely to the terms once was researching, expanding, etc. However, I never could just trust the graphs as the differences never seemed that great.

This makes it much more easy to spot a niche term - niche being like the examples Jim mentioned. 9,900 searches a month is not bad to go after when there are other KWs that rank far higher as seen in his screenshot.

Great post Jim. I actually used this tonight before I opened my email. I guarantee that I would be heading there now to use it, if I hadn't finished my keyword research for the day.

Keep sending us more info.

By the way, I enjoyed the webinar you did with Michelle McPhearson.

The "Broad" numbers are obviously too big compared to the exact traffic you see on your site since they include all keyword combinations of your chosen keyword + other words.

Take a look at Google's definition for Broad, Phrase and Exact:

https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6324&ctx=tltp

If you choose Exact, you'll get a much better and realistic number of searches for that keyword.

Wow, I'm nearly speechless… How fitting that you are the first to notice this and get the word out. Go NicheBot.

Thanks for the heads up Jim.
I realize this helps alot for one picking their keywords, however I can't help to wonder what are Google's tactic's behind it? My guess would be that it's going to raise the cost of alot of keyword(s)/phrases and to whom's benefit? Google for sure and more specificly, Adwords. I've been using Google search since 1998 which is all they had at that time. Just keep in mind folks, there are quite a few smart cookies over there so keep in mind their "niceity" does have motives.

BTW Jim, I guess you've heard that Google Adsense is retiring their Referral program in August of this year.

Good luck everyone, keep your eyes open and have someone watch your back!

Sincerely,
Peter Purcell
The Camping Folks
Owner/Operator

Great News Jim, Here i am willing & to much eager to find more & more information about keyword research.

It seems the more popular the search term… the more Google rounded the numbers: Google shows (for arguments' sake) 37 000 000 searches for the keyword "contract" and not 37 976 453. This means that you have a margin of error of 1 million searches per 37million searches (1m/37m).

The smaller the search volumes get, the more accurate it gets… A keyword like "Legal Contract Solutions" may only receive 57 searches per month.

But it's great to be free from Wordtracker et al!

Gerrit

Hi Jim,

I first heard about this from Eric Giguere, but wanted to get your take on it. Looking forward to when this change has been integrated into NB.

From the comments by some, it's obvious we need to take these results with a grain of salt, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that adwords impressions are a 100% accurate indication of real searches.

I manage close to $1,000,000 worth of adwords spend for business clients, and I know that just because you search for a known keyword that should trigger an ad in google, it doesn't always show up.

Even if you have the Accelerated delivery option chosen in the Campaign budget options section, your ad does not show up 100% of the time (assuming you bid enough to be on page 1 as well).

So… chances are that your impressions numbers from real adwords campaigns are also lower than the real world.

It's just another way google protects their true count numbers from competitors and over-zealous internet marketers

Anyway, I will keep an eye on this whole change, and it's a step in the right direction as far as I am concerned. It will certainly make my life easier when evaluation keywords for use in client campaigns.

The next place I hope they provide this data in the AdWords Traffic Estimator, which is also in the tools section of the adwords account.

Keep up the good work Jim.

Eran Malloch - Google AdWords Qualified Professional
WCR Internet Marketing

I am new to all of this. Thank you all for the input. I think for the time being I will listen to Chris Bradley. If it is that far off then I am not going to rely on it just yet.

I noticed this earlier today while doing some KW research for a new project. At first I thought there was something wrong with my eyes, but then I realized that big G was giving me something far more useful than those shaded bars. Now if they really want to wow me, they'll add in an estimate of daily search volume + the competing number of pages for our keyword results.

Excellent news and judging by all these responses something that has been needed for some time, being a newbie I still have alot to learn but your training programme is #1
please keep it up.

Great news! Do you think all these paid service like wordtracker will die?

Yeah, that's a really big news!
But has anyone compared numbers which the Google Keyword Tool gives with your real data? I have some very strange results…

Hi Jim readers n posters … just goes to show nothing stays the same online even Google keyword tools … good info is not so hard to find if you hang around with the right kind of marketers (right here)… as we all need updates on what's current what's working and of course how by working with it the best way forward for all to see and use then benefit sounds like a nichebot advert in the making …

All my best to you and your Google tools
Phillip Skinner

It looks like Google have just changed how I am going to spend my time this morning.

This is excellent news.

Great news, Jim! Thanks for sending it through so quickly. It will be very useful indeed to have these numbers.

At last!! thank you for letting me know!! Overture was so waiting for someone else to take their service from them. Now more of us will deal with Google stats end to end and we will all maybe forget the fragmented support we got from Overture.

Why couldn't they have done this loooong ago?

Jim, when you've compared figures with your search logs etc please let's hear about it!

Thanks!

Wow this is good stuff. I have already linked to this post in Digital Point forums

I was surprised by the count numbers while doing a keyword research yesterday. This is definitely a good move. I always use google keyword tool along with WT results since depending on wordtracker data alone is not very trustable and, google count numbers will now give a more clear picture.

It is what we all have been waiting for, isn't it? Like a dream come true. I'm stunned.

Louise

Google NEVER does anything without a very solid commercial reason and 'giving away' this detailed breakdown can only be a prelude to increased Adwords costs.

Seeing as we all used to have to apply a factor to try and get a handle on Google search volumes this has to be a huge leap forward, even if we then have to apply another factor to make them look accurate!

Good and fast information from NicheBot as usual !

A useful addition, we shall look at the numbers to see if they match their other web designer tools. A change in the right direction though.

Hey Jim

This is great news…..

I see debates going on about how accurate, and how impressions in a certain position somehow relate to total counts…..as always we do not really know what these # represent to Google….or where they came from…worldwide, etc..

If I only target 5 countrys how can my impressions possibly realte to how many times a keyword was searched worldwide…..

Hey maybe I am too simplistic but….Google still knows its target market I think

Leo Hanes

That's an excellent add-on by Google, Jim, thanks for revealing this info…now I gotta search some keywords

Thanks for sharing the news Jim. Previously, the best thing about that tool were the adwords prices. Now that we have actual search numbers from the horse's mouth creating sites for us beginners will be a little simpler until we can get the tools like yours that cover everything.

Thanks again
Rick

Actually, this P****S ME OFF!! I just joined a little over a week ago, and have been working my way thru Jim's "10 Commandments". I had already found some large volume, low-competition kw's in my niche that the "big boys" had missed.

Now Google has them there under "Other Suggested Keywords", or something similar, for EVERYBODY to see!!!

But hopefully my big competitors will be lazy and won't notice it too soon, so I can get a good head start on these keywords, at least.

I guess in the long run this will be a good thing, but it sure as heck is disheartening when you just found a competitive edge, only to find out immediately that you're possibly losing it.

Now we are all screwed…

Google Bombs, SEM SPAM, crazy Black hat tricks will be going rampage…

Good luck to all..

cheers,

Jim,
Thanks for the timely information. I agree with Peter Purcell re: motivation. Google realized that releasing this information will increase their ROI. Something is afoot. It will be interesting to see how they tweak their ad programs to monetize the information.

I also agree with "contracts." The smaller key phrase volumes which are less sexy but a lot more specific, better serve SEO clients. Using these tactics I have actually managed to achieve CTRs of over 20% for one client with very positive ROI on her Adwords campaign.

Looking forward to seeing the new information incorporated into Nichebot soon!

Best,
Karma

Might help! If we've developed our intellect, now, we can intuit precisely how, where, what we can do to assist ourselves to the next best target to direct our efforts toward to bring in the revenue:)

This will greatly aid niche research knowing exact figures gives you greater insight on the target market rather than just general demand, this would make you able to compare, say two different highly focused niches within the same general niche to find out which gets more traffic

Jim,

I received an interesting article from Allyn Gardyne of Associateprograms.com. I've copied part of his article from his newsletter on some results he was receiving when testing out the new Google search. Here it is:

============================================================
But before you try it - https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal -
be warned. I've been playing around with it for a while, and noticed a couple of traps.

If you're not careful, it's easy to get search numbers that are obviously wrong - far too low or far too high.

For example, if you dive in and search for "2009 calendar" you may think the average monthly search volume is 165,000 searches. Or think it's 14,800 for "seo book".

However, that's for the "Broad" search, which is the default. If you're doing basic keyword research for website planning or article writing, that's probably not the figure you need to look at.

There's a little drop-down box you can use to refine your search and get different average monthly searches. For example…

2009 calendar - Broad - 165,000
2009 calendar - Phrase - 74,000
2009 calendar - Exact - 49,500
2009 calendar - Exact (Australia) - 49,500 (??? Can't be right.)

seo book - Broad - 14,000
seo book - Phrase - 12,100
seo book - Exact - 6,600
seo book - Exact (Australia) 140

The Broad and Phrase options can include variations of your
phrase. (Click on the question marks inside the tool and follow the links for detailed explanations.)

Where you live can alter your search results. I'm in Australia, and so Google "helps" me by tailoring my Keyword Tool searches for Australia. You can click on a link and tailor results for different parts of the planet or choose "All Countries and Territories".

Also, Google says if you access the Keyword Tool from within an AdWords ad group, the search traffic statistics will factor in your campaign's country and language targeting (if you target a region or city, only the country will be reflected).

As you can see from the results I received for my "2009 calendar" searches, the Australian result doesn't make sense. The International and Australian results ought to be hugely different. Instead they're exactly the same.

This odd result is a handy reminder that when you're using
keyword research tools don't automatically accept the numbers. You need to add a hefty dollop of commonsense.

I did the same search three times and received the same odd
result each time. I returned an hour later and still received a wonky result.
==========================================================

Patrick

Hi Jim, Thanks for the information. i already used this too from google for my site. It is really a smart move from google three cheers to google.

Wow - Google Tool now shows exact monthly searches…

Hi folks,
something mouthwatering just happened today over at Google which is just awesome for us as net marketers.
They just released the exact number of searches each keyword gets over at their external keyword tool…
Google KeywordToolExternal…

5 years late, but finally! Gee whiz, was that so hard Google?!?

Thanks for the info!

J

This is good news to have a reliable keyword tool that has accurate traffic stats straight from the market leader.

Well about time, Google!

In my opinion, 'Big G' is feeling our pain and providing us with info to finally make our lives a little easier. A word of warning: munificence these days is normally closely followed by increased costs.

It's all devilishly simple: hold some main cards close to your chest and turn them into money grabbers when the economy turns south.

Not to worry, you can get your own back by investing in the stock market: the greatest secret hoarders should yield the highest returns!!!

Disclaimer: The above should not be construed as enticement in any way shape or form to invest in the stock market. If you choose to do so, just hold Jim responsible. After all, he started the whole thing.

P.S. Thanks, Jim, for noticing the above & sharing the good news. Hope you have recuperated from the shock.

I too just did a "test" on 10 main keywords and it does seem largely inflated. My question is WHY would they inflate their own numbers?

Seems like that would discourage using those in an adword campaign, since the green bar usually shows competition at the maximum. The partial green bar or no green bar for comp. and lots of traffic for a popular keyword makes it nearly unbelievable completely.

What are they REALLY up to??

Thanks again Jim for the very useful information.

I feel it may be better to step back and look at the big picture before diving into Google's gift. I myself will wait and see how Google's main competitors combat a/o condone Google's action, namely Yahoo & MSN. I'm sure they will look into the matter in depth, especially Yahoo Marketing. It may present them with a leg up on Google, we'll just have to see what direction they take in the matter.

Much luck Jim and Folks. Hang on!
My best,
Peter P.
The Camping Folks

The changing to the exact match seems to give more believable numbers.

Jim: Thank you for the news. This is great. It takes a lot of guess work out of the process. It makes research so much easier. If they use and go by this in ratings then why should they hide it. I wonder how this will affect the rating process.

Hi Jim

Very interesting.

I checked Wordtracker and they say that "Radio Blog" is searched 74 times a month. Google says 110,000 searches. Be interesting to see which one is closest to the number of visitors being on the first page would bring.

Thanks for the breaking news!
Scott

jim. guess you liked my lead to johncow. i'm picking you up on other sites pointing to the site using "what you need to know" thanks. jerome whittier

Hi there

In my opinion there are two main factors to keep in mind when looking at Google's figures.

One is the "broad", as opposed to exact search terms. Obviously it is not going to be the same.

The other important factor to keep in mind is that being on page one in Google, does not mean that you will get ALL the traffic for that search. It firstly depends on the intent of the searcher: did they type in what they are really looking for, or did they word their query wrong? Second factor is your own site description: Does your description describe the answer to their query?

Keyword research will never really become an exact science, just like market research isn't in the brick-and-mortar world.

It can give you an indication, and you can use your common-sense to make judgements, but it is NOT a set-in-stone, either black-or-white answer.

Thanks for informing us so quickly Jim, much appreciated!

Regards

Louise

Thanks Jim for letting us know. The sharing of info here, especially the part about the broad, actual matches etc are eye openers for newbies.

Wow… amazing! Got to check that out

Whoa, good catch! thanks for telling us about it!

Unreal!! Isn't it ?:) I did a Jig when I learned about it! No kidding,lol.

Putting numbers to the tool is exciting news!

But, like a lot of you I am not convinced the numbers are accurate.

I am bidding on keywords the tool says position 1-3 for .05 and I'm paying about.20 for position 3.6. And, only getting about 1/3 impressions compared to their traffic estimate. Hopefully the numbers are relative so it can be used for comparing keywords to target!!

Mike

This is great news. Maybe we can finally start getting some accurate keyword data.

Thanks for letting us know.

I look forward to nichebot getting it up because I want to recheck all the keywords that I use.

Yea, I was surprised when saw that. Thought it is a some mistake…Unbelievable. Just did some quick data comparison and seems that I am not sure to believe them in 100%.
Thanks for sharing.

Pretty cool stuff we have here! Numbers are indeed so much easier to read than silly bar graphs.

We too would like to know how well these numbers stack up against "reality", so we're looking into it. For example, if we have some keywords for which we're bidding really high (

We now know if its worth going for a particular keyword, great stuff!

I couldn't believe it. I've been waiting a long time as an SEO to get this data. I stayed up all last night searching and looking up things. Lots of keywords I would not have considered are now possibilities. Hopefully this isn't a test and Google will keep it live.

Jim…I noticed this recently when doing some deep keyword research for a client. Interesting…wonder how long they'll release the information (inflated numbers or not!).

This really is amazing!! For the first time ever I don't have to guess what number of searches keywords are getting on google!! For forever we have all used overtures numbers and a multiplier to get these numbers and we just hoped they were close. This is great but I have to agree it makes me nervous.

Why would Google make this change?

Is it going to stay this way?

People must be scraping the hell out of keyword lists right now to get these numbers into a database.

I noticed the new Google numbers data about 2 days before you reported it. It showed up briefly and then went away (back to the graphics) for a day or so. I could have used this a few weeks ago.

Not only they are giving us the number of searches, they are also letting us filter by broad, exact and phrase match… awesome….

Any real help from Google in numbers is great - even if the numbers are inflated they are or can be of help.
Thanks for providing this new info.

Sorry to pop anyones theories…Ed Dale says the numbers are dead accurate. I don't think anyone else here has his resources to double check with. "Quick checks" don't cut it.

As for being at #1 and not getting the clicks….er….that would mean your site description is "below par" or it may be that your market is more mature or more analytical. Being #1 for Wedding Favors gets a different percentage of clicks than #1 for Lawyers.

[…] this blog entry regarding the release of information on Google keyword tool. addthis_url = […]

This is great news, Jim - thanks for sharing it with us! I believe this might be a nice trend into a little more disclosure coming from the search engines (or at least I hope it is).

As with any keyword tool or niche market research, it is always best to do what was mentioned in a previous comment - use a healthy dose of common sense.

I am looking forward to playing with these newly released numbers and comparing them to my own niche sites. I imagine that 'exact match' will be the best option for most of us.

Jim, thanks again!

Jennifer
PotPieGirl.com

This is HUGE news… finally, we can see some sort of real number. Of course, it will take quite a bit of research by everyone interested to verify that their numbers are anywhere NEAR real - but it sure beats green bars!

Unbelievable! This will really help me to increase traffic to my website and my clients. No more taking samples of data from keyword databases. I mean Jim morris has said that the only real way of knowing search traffic was if the search engines themselves started releasing their info. Who knew that they would do this so soon.

I will take it with a grain of salt until I puy up some sites using the info but for now I am excited!

Jim, This is fabulous. Can hardly wait to see the data in Nichebot. Thanks for sharing the great news.

Great news and for sure there has to be an ulterior motive here but for now we are going to benefit with a alternative source for search volumes. As regards accuracy and real usefulness only time and a load more analysis will tell us.

Ed Dale of Immediate Edge claims in a recent video that he has checked the figures against other sources and reckons the figures are accurate. We will see…

Here's Ed's video: http://seesmic.com/videos/fwJfQNeFWQ

Well… I only trust data I manipulated myself. Everyone has an agenda with publishing data in the open, and while this seems to be an interesting development I would not trust the data fully.

Well, this is certainly good news if the numbers hold up as accurate. I don't know why they wouldn't, but it seems some people tracking their data closely say Google's numbers appear to be off in several instances. I look forward to seeing this new development reflected in the Nichebot options.

Thanks Jim, I really think that this is great news even if the numbers are inflated. It won't take too long before the industry figures out how to scale them into something meaningful. As they stand today, they are a place to start and much more meaningful than the green bars of yesterday. Combining this information with competition information available in NicheBot certainly seems to make the SEO/PPC decisions on the best way to gain coverage for your key searchterms much easier. Having all this data in one place will be a very nice addition to NicheBot (assuming that Google will make this available via API calls).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this all unfolds. It would seem to me that it could also force the hand of MSN & Yahoo! to make their search data available too.

Bill

I'm delighted that Google has finally revealed the "numbers" and look forward to doing some keyword research with them and compare to nichebot stats…

Great going Google, please keep up the good work.

Sorry to be the party popper. It is, indeed, a revolution for Google to disclose what they claim are the search volumes of keywords, however, the question is: ARE THEY ANYWHERE NEAR ACCURATE??
Take a look at the screenshot above, 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 when you search "radio blog". Neither broad nor phrase, neither in the U.S. nor in the U.K. nor in Canada.
Same is true for "bad girls blog", the mystery bar is half green, which indicates moderate competition (actually, nobody knows what it 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 SOME competition when the bar is half green, right? Wrong again! Not even ONE ad in all the English speaking countries (I confess I didn't try India…).
I also strongly doubt the search volumes they mention, but that's a different story. An advertiser needs BOTH the search volume AND the competition volume in order to decide on his/her keywords, PCP, daily budget, not to mention on-page and off-page SEO. Does Google give us information we can rely on? You decide.
I'm in the process of writing a detailed report and preparing a video explaining how "accurate" Google's data is. Go to my website and subscribe to my list, I will send you both the report and the video as soon as they are ready.
I really wish Jim (who, unknowingly, was my first Adwords teacher) responded to this comment.
Have a great weekend!

I think it is a great update from Big G. It is so cool mostly because it is a wonderful gift that many of us expected for such a long time.
The numbers are pretty ok, let's dont forget the tool shows the search volume not the clicks, in some cases there could be a big difference.
Thanks

Thanks so much Jim for keeping us at the top of our games in terms of knowledge about sources for keyword searches and for best article placements.

This is great news for webmasters, bloggers and people who need to know about keyword rank for better placement of their own narrative and understanding how the online world operates.

Amazing!

Thank you Jim. There's just so much a newbie like me have to be able to keep up with. And you do help me a lot. I appreciate your keeping me so informed. Thanks again.
Willie

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the information which I find very interesting.
However like many others I believe Google is into something.
I'm a newbie so there is a lot for me to learn here

I can't help but think what this means for commercial keyword research services such as Wordtracker.

I already saw a video where the user got the keyword data from Google's tool and then basically used Wordtracker to get, in an automated fashion, the number of search results for each keyword…thus, totally bypassing and not even looking at Wordtracker's info.

Jim,

Thanks much for the heads up. Why Google wasn't doing this before is a real mystery. This information is a big step forward and will really help my clients make organic search enging optimization and Google Adwords decisions.

Scott

Great news! Google has kept their numbers hidden for too long. Granted, these numbers still aren't perfect, but at least they're a start.

Hi,

I usually find keywords with google tool, and counter back the search amount by seobook or trellian kd.

With the new features, the process is simplified.

But as I counter check the amount in google tool and other tools, there are some differences observed.

Anyway, it is a good change and it had made my task simpler.

I tend to agree with a majority of your readers, Jim. The data is a bit overinflated, but it gives you a better sense of magnitudes than a little green bar can.

This is great news. However it is a little buggy which is surprising considering it is google.

Being from the UK I am always comparing US data against UK data. Dissappointed to find that when I change location the figures are exactly the same. Of course this might be something I'm doing.

It makes sound commercial sense. Surely it's in Google's interests to reveal numbers relating to searches. If an Adwords campaign is successful because people have made an informed decision based on the frequency that certain words or terms are searched, then they are more likely to use Adwords again.

Great update Scott - thanks. Will this be incorporated into NB? After reading some of the posts many think these figures may be inflated? What are your thoughts?

This is clearly great data for us Webmasters but equally I feel dangerous for the Internet. Will Google's dominance prove to be costly for us all in the long run by feeing off the free tools and data in the short term?

Hello Jim

Thanks, once again, for your valuable info. I'm looking forward to your final assessment and how this will be integrated into NicheBot and actually how reliable this new step by google is.

Joe

Well for me this is a case of yin and yang.

When it was harder to deternmine the search volume I felt like I had an advantage over the big companies who were throwing loads of money in a shotgun approach. Now they can target their big bucks.

On the other hand as I rely on free traffic this will make my organic results even more powerful in the eyes of sponsors.

So it's a thumbs up to this development butI agree that it probaby heralds higher addwords pricing. It may also make good keyword domains even more valuable.

Well… as great as this news is to most of you, I have to say I'm somewhat confused. I'm completely new to the arena of keyword research, and have just been searching on nichebot for the first time over the last 2 days.

I'd be very greatful if someone could give me some tips on how to complement my nichebot searches with google's keyword tool. I've already discovered that Google's tool is not so good with the long tail keywords, often claiming to have 'insufficient data.' Hence I would assume the google tool on its own is not as useful as when it's combined with the others.

This is great news, Ioften wondered when this day would come. This really helps with decision making.

as i commented on my blog about a year ago, if the mammals avoid taking sides in the wars of dinosaurs, they can benefit.
somebody will develop software that indexes these searches. agencies will get rid of people that do not understand the new paradigm.
none of tis replaces th need to identify the brand, build the brand. it does give the fast a way to understand the calls of the marketplace a little better.

This is very good news.

Thanks Jim, good info for who looking for keyword, I wonder why Google ope fo the public !

Hi Jim,
In response to your email requesting our thoughts about an underlying motive and a well thought out plan…. there's no doubt it's a strategic plan, but maybe a bit more too.

I think it could be a combination of competitive business strategy, the child’s “king of the hill” game and a good old-fashioned pi##ing match. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has not only declared war on Google, but is obsessed with beating them in the online space. In May, 2008 Mr. Bellmer sent a note to Microsoft employees which included the following statements: “Ultimately, our goal is to build the industry-leading business in search, online advertising, media, and social networking. We are absolutely committed to being the leader in each of these areas. Now is the time to do what we have always done best—be tenacious, focus on the long term, innovate, and keep working hard.”

Microsoft is in the beginning stages of this battle for online dominance, but is clearly going to go after the online advertising market, as evidenced by their recent program in which they pay consumers who use the Microsoft search engine and purchase from one of their cash back advertisers. OK, Microsoft doesn’t actually foot the bill for the cash back on purchases, the product advertisers do, but the advertisers only have to pay for an online ad when a consumer actually purchases (CPA model.) Also, there is no click fraud, arbitrage or time spent monitoring a pay-per-click campaign and the consumer gets quick comparison shopping results. It actually seems pretty cool and could lure some ecommerce sites over to their CPA model from Google’s PPC model.

No doubt, Google realizes their current bread and butter is online advertisers and I don’t think they want to give up ANY of their market share, so they fire back any way they can, especially if it’s a way which doesn’t cost them a dime (e.g. releasing their search volume counts.) In addition, in 2007, Google did a beta of a PPA (pay per action) advertising model, but has now purchased DoubleClick, renamed the former DoubleClick Performics Network to the “Google Affiliate Network” (CPA model) and is ending their PPA program in August. Google is even trying to get into the Microsoft Windows Mobile space with their recent Android system.

I’m sure we’ll continue to see lots of shots fired back and forth between both companies in the next few years, which will likely benefit both consumers and advertisers. Isn’t competition just grand?!

Something worth looking at is the extra columns not shown by default. I only noticed these when I decided to copy the entire table (using the firefox plugin "copy table", as the csv didnt give me the data I wanted. When I pasted the table into my spreadsheet, there were all these extra columns…

It appears there is HIDDEN content in the table…

Jim ~ thanks for the followup mail. I think it's WONDERFUL to be able to see the numbers ~ vastly useful to me, and I don't care a fig why they did it. Some corporate clone thought up the reasons for it. Mindshare is a good word, and their keeping MY mindshare this way means I can keep a higher mindshare of people looking for me and what I offer.

Finally, Google is lending a hand to a market place enhancement that can benefit them and the blogger…

Gail, I agree with you. You can compare within Google inside your camapign or go to tools you will notice the difference.

This is huge! Crazy that Google can cause a crazy amount of action at the flip of a switch.

Will be interesting to see what they have up their sleeve.

Someone mentioned hidden columns. Some of that data looks very interesting. We'll see what uses can made of it. I think others are correct in that Google got wind of something MS or Yahoo was going to do and they decided to take the wind out of their sales. Very shrewd.

On on gut level, it makes no sense at all that Google would release numbers which are either innocently or ignorantly inflated. They would eventually be found out and their credibility would take a big hit, opening the door for Microsoft, yahoo, and MSN to capitalize on their skewed numbers by offering D.O.B. accurate counts.

The wide fluctuation in search numbers can have many causes–a glitch in the program,
errors of estimate by PPC'ers, and, most likely, if substantiated a fundamental problem in the methodology employed to assess search numbers.

Again, it seems unlikely that Google would knowingly or ineptly publishly grossly misleading numbers.

Its great, now replaces what overture used to do for us.

It looks as though most people are considering the ulterior motives which are behind this move.

I reckon this will make keyword research a little easier for us all.

Frann, thanks for the tip about hidden data. I've found that data for phrase and exact match are much more accurate than broad match. Clearly broad match is a bad way to advertise.

It's possible that the big advertisers have been telling Google that they want and need better numbers to come on board in a bigger way.

Google doesn't need to increase the costs - we will, now that we know prices and search volume. Lots more advertising will pour into AdWords.

It looks like another trick for all of us to do our searches on Google so we can all be counted now. But it nice to know that it is there. So how do we ??

Thanks Jim,
Informative and appreciated.
Thanks Google.

I personally think it's just good that we have some data now and can show the client as more and more people are asking for keyword popularity numbers.

The figures seem pretty accurate. This is the total traffic - it's not all going to the number 1 slot - only about 42% goes to number 1. Someone mentioned they're getting around 41% at number 1 so they seem to be getting about the right amount, which means the figures are pretty good.

Great News

At last something concrete from google. This should be a very great ammunition for web masters. Hi Jim, thanks for this. I am a new nichebot user and I wish you could include this.

This is great news and a major asset from Google.

Thanks Jim,

Great post Jim.

Makes you wonder what they're upto, doesn't it?

Cheers,

Pete

Thanks Jim,
Are you the only one paying attention? No one else is mentioning this. Apparently you are on the leading edge of current SEO knowledge. Thanks
Stress Reducer

[…] all the sudden, the keyword search numbers are wide open with Google keyword tool. See this blog. This certainly casts a death spell on the existing keyword research tools. So, where does keyword […]

The really interesting thing will be to see how this affects Wordtracker and their subscriptions.

We will have to wait and see.

I am always suspecious of Google. We need them for traffic, but they can really bite at times. I appreciate the new format, makes it easier to do keyword research, but I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Good news thanks for this information

The tools is awesome and yes I am a Nichbot Suscriber….
I cant wait until the api has been implemented into google….

PLEASE EMAIL ALL YOUR SUBSCRIBERS AS SOON AS IT HAPPENS…

Regards

My question now is this… are any of you using a formula to determine TOTAL search numbers? In other words, if Google accounts for 60% of all search traffic, then would you say that if Google says there are 6000 searches on a keyword per month then perhaps there are 10000 searches total? Just putting that out there…

Good news thanks for the info!

Hello! simply super resource

[…] Source:BREAKING NEWS: Google Releases Exact Search Count Volume for keyword phrases… […]

This isn't new information is it…? It is a slight variation of how they present data. I would guestimate that most of the data is skewed a heavy amount if you check it against top ranking search results on the Wikipedia keyword results.

They have been releasing approximate search volume and estimated price information through the adwords campaign panel for over two years on and off. They are just playing with the dashboard view and adding some functionality to the other search tools they offer.

I suggest everyone who is interested in Google numbers really take the time to play with all the labs products and sign-up for the various Google webmaster tools, as many of these hidden gems are specifically kept in silos so that Google can control variate testing and watch how folk use the information.