Google adds search data to its Adwords keyword tool
Big big SEM news today - you can now see the (approximate) number of times that a keyword/phrase is searched for in Google in the past year or month when you use its Adwords keyword tool. For many internet marketers, myself included, this comes close to finding the holy grail of business on the web.Up until now the only data given in the keyword tool has been the "green bar" of search popularity; a very rough and pretty inaccurate guide as to how popular the search term was that you entered into into the tool.
For Google to give away its search data in this way marks a sea change for the web giant, who, up till now, kept their search data confidential. The reason for this was assumed to be Google wanting to keep its search results as pure and free from SEO influence as possible. Now, with the credit crunch beginning to bite, marketing and advertising budgets are being squeezed, which is having a knock-on effect on online advertising. The adding of traffic to the keyword tool can be seen as a sweetner for businesses looking to occupy web space; it gives them certainty in an uncertain environment, something that business owners crave.
A corollary of Google making its search data available is the effect it will have on keyword research tools such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. So long a staple of SEOs the world over, these tools have now surely become surplus to requirements. After all, why would you want to base the focus of your SEM campaign on keyword data that comes from little-used meta search engines such as Dogpile, rather than the search engine that the vast majority of people use - Google.
Another thing to consider by the releasing of this data is the effect it might have on Google, searchers and webmasters/marketers:
The effect on Google is likely to be positive as, as been previously stated, the release of search data is likely to encourage marketers to buy advertising from Google, which will in turn reflect well on Google's profits.
The effect on marketers is massive, as I mentioned earlier, as there will be accurate keyword research data fro the first time, making planning digital marketing campaign's a lot easier and more accurate.
The effect on searchers is perhaps the most interesting. One view is that now that marketers and SEOs have the Google search data it will result in a better user experience, as marketers' strategy and campaigns will be more aligned with their market's needs (what they are searching for). For example, when previously it was thought that the most commonly searched for term for car rental was "car rental", then Google's data shows it to actually be "cheap car hire", then the people searching more often for the latter term will get more choice and (hopefully) more quality sites than they would have done before. So consumers are matched with products more easily, which is the goal of marketing, and capitalism in general.
A more sceptical view is that the release of the Google data is a step too far in the marketers favour and seachers would be better serviced by more distance between marketer and customer in the digital space.
I'm inclined to agree with the first view, but then, being a marketer, I'm biased!
Whatever your view on the merits (or lack therof) of this dramatic move by Google, one thing is for sure, its going to cause big ripples in the search engine pond.
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