Google Keyword Tool …”tweaked” again?

April 10, 2009 written by Kurt Noer

Anyone notice that Google’s Keyword Tool is occationally mixing up the order of the words within certain search terms? For example, a recent query of ‘golf ball’ and ‘golf balls’ gave the following results:

Notice the third, fourth and sixth search terms. I know for a fact (from studying these terms countless times in the past) that the words Titleist, Used and Callaway are actually suppose to be in front of the search terms and not at the end.

As I am sure many of you already know, this is an excellent tool for both AdWords AND for running research on efforts to target free organic listings.  Remember the days of having to rely on WordTracker and the Overture tool?  You would have to multiply their numbers to guesstimate what Google was experiencing.

I love Google’s tool, but this recent change reminds me a lot of how the old Overture tool would often work.  It too would scramble the words and Overture would state that it did not really matter for their “ppc” efforts. I hope Google is not thinking in the same mode.  It is always nice to know exactly how people are typing in their search terms so that we can match this pattern within our optimization efforts. 

Yes, you can switch the option from Broad to Phrase or Exact:

However, these options provide numbers that get a little screwy and popular terms like “used golf balls” drop way down to the bottom of the list or disapear all together.

I welcome your feedback.

Find the Google AdWords Keyword Tool here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal