Google's Keyword Planner Now Combines Keywords for Search Volume

[Postmortis]

Hi all,

Some fairly big changes to Google's keyword planner are going on. They are now showing the exact same search volume for similar keywords.

From the article:

Last week, Google made a change to the tool where instead of showing individual keyword estimates for each keyword or keyword phrase, Google is now lumping in the data together, meaning Google will show identical estimates for similar keywords or keyword phrases – advertisers will recognize this as Google combining search variants. You can no longer see individual estimates to see which of those has the highest volume and which the lowest, and valuable aspect for both advertisers and SEOs who are choosing which keywords to target based on volume .

This also has another major implication. For those that don’t notice the change – or worse, pulling the data from tools that haven’t updated to take into account the change – this means that some advertisers and SEOs are grossly overestimating those numbers, since many tools will combine data, and there is no notification alert on the results to show that how Google calculates average monthly searches has been changed. So the data could erroneously be combined, instead of noting that the estimates Google is provided are combined already for many, leading SEOs and advertisers to think search volume is far higher than it really is.

For example, here are the results for two keywords – SEO and search engine optimization. Instead of reporting individually, they are now showing identical data, even though previously it showed the data individually. For someone not paying attention, they could believe that these two individually have a search volume of 1,346,000 average monthly searches total. But in reality, it is SEO and search engine optimization TOGETHER that have 673,000 monthly searches.

However, there is even more problems. There could also be ADDITIONAL keywords that are included in that 673,000 figure, but the Keyword Planner does not state this. So estimates could be significantly off for someone thinking the total search volume just for “search engine optimization” keyword alone is 673,000 per month.

The Keyword Planner now seems to combine many search variants, including:

• plurals with non-plurals for any word in the keyword phrase
• acronyms with longhand version
• stemming variants: -er, -ing, -ized, -ed etc keywords (ie. designer, designing, designed)
• words that can be spelled with or without space (ie. car park and carpark)
• words with and without punctuation (ie. kid toys and kid’s toys)

Source: http://www.thesempost.com/googles-keyword-planner-now-combines-keywords-for-search-volume/

Not a fan of this!

 

[Tiberian]

That is a really odd change although I totally understand why they're doing it - less optimal data means more money from the Magic Money Machine.

Reminds me of when they changed it to where using exact match gives you "closely related terms" - not an "exact" match then, is it?

Of course if you're using 3rd party keyword tools this isn't a big deal and I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I read about this yesterday and I've tried to give it some thought here and there...

I don't feel like it's manipulative or to hide data from SEO's this time. This is a tool for Adwords users.

Take that and combine it with the fact that there really aren't independent results for terms like:

• motorized bicycle
• motorized bike
• motorbike
• bicycle with motor

I made that up but it illustrates the point. There might be slight variations in those SERPs but nothing like it was 4 or 5 years ago. If you own one of those rankings, you're in all of them. This is why on the on-page day of the Crash Course I talk about using LSI terms. Google understands these are synonyms and similar and related. You can push your "density" through the roof without actually over-optimizing. This is why we talk about ranking one page for 10 terms instead of 10 pages for one each. It's how the SERPs have worked for a long while now. The tool is only playing catch up to the reality they already rolled out.

- What's great for SEO is that now, as you use similar anchors to get around over-optimizing off-page, you're going to be picking up some awesome rankings. They've once again shot themselves in the foot for the most part.

- What sucks for PPC is you now have to spend money to get the broken down numbers.
- What sucks for SEO is you now have to rank and have Web Master Tools to get the broken down impressions.

- What's sucky for SEO is it's a consolidation of power for those who can rank.
- What's great for SEO is it's a consolidation of power for those who can rank.

In the end, I don't think Google cares about manipulation. They care about people with crappy efforts and content manipulating. If you do everything right in terms of build, content, on-page, off-page... sure it's manipulation. But it's not shitting up their SERPs. It's contributing. Optimization is a reality for them now. Once anybody who doesn't know about SEO gets their first ranking, the first question they're going to investigate is "why does one page rank better than another."

My point is, they're constantly telling us how to rank. People who've been in the game long enough to understand the sub-textual part of the conversation can follow suit and make cash (and they're late to the party, while some of us have been doing what this new Keyword Planner is suggesting for years now). Greedy people don't have time to study and think, so they pop out like a sore thumb in the link graph, which is fine because they're content always blows too. It's win / win for Google.

My take: What looks like doom and gloom for newbs and spammers looks like a wink and a nod to the professionals.