Change In AdWords & Related Exact Match Results

[DomainVP]

I was using AdWords today because I wanted to do some research on "Kush", a type of marijuana.

So I did the usual search, where i enter the keyword, and a domain name; it returned the exact match stats for they keyword kush (110,000/sv).

The interesting thing was in the bottom "keyword ideas" section, that typically returns all of the most searched/related phrases containing 'kush'. The highest search term only had 6000/sv, which I though was odd because I own a few kush related domains with higher SV.

In fact... that is exactly how I found the other domains. This has long been a method that I used to find great EMDs that were available.

Has anyone else noticed this change in the keyword results?

Could Google be limiting the accessibility of their tools to decrease a marketers ability to use selective relevant keywords; removing organic, to replace with paid advertising.

I somewhat answered my own question...

After some research it looks like Google has shut down access to their autocomplete API a few days ago.

http://searchengineland.com/google-to-shut-down-autocomplete-api-on-august-10th-226131

This has also effected the Keyword Planner as well... we can no longer effectively use use the keyword planner to find great exact match domain names.

And the noose tightens...

 

[equity78]

Keyword planner results look to be spot on for all the searches I have checked for the last year. Like one commenter said,

I think Google makes this move to get more specific data from the people who search, and may be even to provide more accurate statistics in keyword planner.

 

[DomainVP]

Updated the article adding "A quick look At The Differences".

I went into a search I did three months ago, and the "keyword ideas" were very different than they were today, using the same search criteria for both.

For the example I used the search term "3D", and then also did the search for "Kush" again... same results; there are a lot of keyword ideas missing that weren't missing before.

I included a screen shot as well...
http://domainvp.com/blog/google-silently-killed-the-keyword-planner/

 

[enlytend]

I somewhat answered my own question...

After some research it looks like Google has shut down access to their autocomplete API a few days ago.

http://searchengineland.com/google-to-shut-down-autocomplete-api-on-august-10th-226131

This has nothing ... NOTHING to do with keyword planner. Two different products, two different purposes, not related. They're shutting down external use of the autosuggest information, not getting rid of their internal data.

It's in Google's best interests to make the keyword planner as useful as possible from an advertiser standpoint. They're not going to throw out data that brings in new bids - if anything, they are going to maximize how the data is presented to encourage additional spend.

That may or may not be helpful to people using the tool for non-ad-related purposes. Often, it's not.

They totally do not like people using Adwords data for SEO, domain research, or anything else. Did you know Adwords has an API? But if you build something that includes the keyword planner or traffic estimator functions, its mandatory include full adwords ad management capability. Ideally, they want to share the data with advertisers only.

I have a buttload of things to do today, thankfully none of which involves online research, but I have a couple of theories:

1) You're looking up a term which is highly restricted from an advertiser standpoint and completely illegal to advertise in some locations. They could have tweaked the tool to take that into account.

2) Exact match isn't really exact match in Adwords any more - it includes close variants. This has been the case for over a year. They might have filtered close variants out of the returned suggestion list.

RELIABLE places to find out about Adwords changes:

• Adwords.blogspot.com - the official adwords blog. They announce updates there regularly. Advertisers are their bread and butter - they are good about communicating changes.
  
• Adwords community forum - if something happens that negatively affects the big advertisers, people will be talking about it. Also a good place to ask a question and get an authoritative answer.
• Big Adwords agencies/names - blogs, twitter. Matt Umbro, Larry Kim, Jenn Slegg, Brad Geddes, to name a few ...

 

[DomainVP]

This has been the case for over a year. They might have filtered close variants out of the returned suggestion list.

That is not accurate, I have data from 3 months ago that shows a completley different ideas set than what is being returned now.

Obviously the autocomplete and AdWords are two different products, BUT they did the same thing to both products on the same day - restricted/changed the output of data.

The example keyword I used was the term "3D" - not so illegal in countries, so theres that.

 

[enlytend]

That is not accurate

My comment was accurate. I wasn't talking about a change to keyword planner, I was talking about a change to the Adwords product which was made just over a year ago. Since then, exact match and phrase match keywords both include close variants. http://adwords.blogspot.com/2014/08/close-variant-matching-for-all-exact.html There is no such thing as a "pure" exact match keyword type in Adwords any more, and hasn't been for about a year.

FYI, I just ran a search for 3D on my account - I get the same results as your 5/3 list. Check your settings and make sure you aren't unintentionally filtering any results.

 

[time4vps]

Sometimes it's worth using additional tools just to achieve the right picture about keywords. I always use Google Trends + spyfu / moz / similarweb in parallel with Google keyplanner. However, seems google step-by-step building something new for the marketers, and the fact that competition is growing enormously across the world, there's no wonder when we get for example AdWords PRO version for more advantage features