2013: The Year In Google SEO So Far

In the first half of this year, there has been a lot of SEO-related news coming out from Google. Google has pushed out many new algorithms, made many changes to the search result interfaces, penalized many websites and tactics, as well as sent out many warnings about upcoming penalties or actions.

All of this was covered in depth on our sister site, Search Engine Land, but a recap is in order for our Marketing Land readers.

Below, I will summarize the changes in order of Google’s Panda algorithm, Penguin algorithm, and other algorithm updates and launches. I will then discuss some of the manual actions taken and then some of Google’s warnings and statements.

Google Panda Algorithm

Google’s Panda algorithm launched in February 2011 and has since been at the top of the minds of webmasters and SEOs. In the past six months, we learned a lot about Panda. Google recently started to roll out Panda updates over a 10 day period and promised to not give us confirmations of Panda updates going forward. Below are some of the stories we covered in the past six months on this content hungry algorithm.

• Google’s Panda Dance: Matt Cutts Confirms Panda Rolls Out Monthly Over 10 Of 30 Days
• Google Panda Update 25 Seems To Have Hit
• Google: We’re Unlikely To Confirm Current Or Future Panda Updates
• Google: Panda To Be Integrated Into The Search Algorithm (Panda Everflux)
• Google Panda Update Version #24; 1.2% Of Search Queries Impacted
• Official: It’s Google Panda Update 23, Impacting ~1.3% Of Queries

Google Penguin Algorithm

Google’s Penguin algorithm launched in April 2012, and while Panda looked closely at content, Penguin went after links pointing to a page. While Panda’s algorithm impacted a larger percentage of the search results, i.e., 12%, the Penguin update was probably felt more by SEOs, but only impacted about 3% of the search results. We counted four updates to the algorithm since its launch, but in 2013, Google significantly updated the algorithm calling it Penguin version 2.0.

The previous updates happened as such:

• Penguin 1 on April 24, 2012 (impacting ~3.1% of queries)
• Penguin 2 on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%)
• Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012 (impacting ~0.3% of queries)
• Penguin 4 on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries)

Other Google Algorithm Updates/Launches

Outside of the big guns, Penguin and Panda, we had many other algorithm and launches from Google in the past six months. From the PayDay loan algorithm, to mobile site speed and domain clustering – Google has been busy working on improving their relevancy and combating spammers. Here are some of the major changes to the algorithm in the past six months.

• Google Payday Loan Algorithm: Google Search Algorithm Update To Target Spammy Queries
• Google: Site Speed Penalty Coming To Mobile Web Sites
• Google Update Underway: But For Payday Or Panda?
• If That Was A Google Update You Felt, Google’s Not Confirming It
• Google’s Matt Cutts: Domain Clustering To Change Again; Fewer Results From Same Domain

Google’s Manual Actions:

Algorithms, such as those mentioned above, impact a wider base of sites, but Google also has an army of search quality analysts that patrol the Web to find sites manipulating their search results and getting by the algorithm. There is a difference between algorithm and manual penalties, and below are some of the manual actions Google has taken or promised to take in the past six months. Some of these impacted huge brands, while others impacted specific industries or techniques.

• Google To Take Action Against Fake Search Results Injected Into Browser History
• After Penalizing Interflora & UK Newspapers, Google Warns Against Advertorials
• Google Zaps Another Link Network, ‘Several Thousand’ Link Sellers Hit
• “Text Link Ads” Was Latest Hit By Google’s Actions Against Link Sellers
• Did Google Just Penalize Another Link Network? SAPE Links
• Link Seller Linking To You? Google Says You Won’t Benefit From It.
• Interflora Gets Its Google Rankings Back, 11 Days After Penalty
• Google Dishes Out PageRank Penalties To UK Newspaper Web Sites For Selling Links

Google SEO Advice & Statements

Google has commonly given advice to the webmaster and SEO community over the years. Some of these come in the form of videos, blog posts and messages conveyed at search conferences. Below is a list of some of the more important tips and words of advice from Google in the past six months.

• Google’s Matt Cutts: Stock Images Do Not Impact Search Engine Rankings
• Links From Press Releases Do Have Ranking Benefit Despite What Google Says
• Google’s Cutts: We Don’t Ban Sites Critical Of Google, But Here Is Why We Do Penalize Sites…
• Google: Guest Blogging For Links? You Better Nofollow Those Links
• Google: PageRank Dilution Through A 301 Redirect Is A Myth
• Google’s Matt Cutts: Holding A Patent Doesn’t Mean We Use That Patent In Search Quality
• Q&A With Google’s Matt Cutts On What To Do If You Get A Manual Penalty
• The Top Five SEO Mistakes According To Google’s Matt Cutts
• Google: Adding Too Many Pages Too Quickly May Flag A Site To Be Reviewed Manually
• Google’s Matt Cutts: Don’t Be The Sucker That Buys The Spammy Domain
• Google Publishes Its Search Quality Rating Guidelines For First Time

5 Tips on Dealing With Small Budget Search Clients

I've been working in online marketing for nearly 10 years now. My experience has ranged from being both in-house and agency side as well as running my own freelance company. Today I run an agency (with other people too) with offices in two countries.

One thing this varied experience has done for me has given me insight into clients who have budgets from $400 per month all the way up to in excess of $40,000 per month. You learn a lot about client relations from both budget spectrums, however, I have found that the smaller the budget, the higher the proportion of maintenance that the client requires (from my experience).

Here are some potential issues you may encounter with small budget clients and solutions for managing expectations from the outset.

For this post, let's assume that "the client" is a new lead that has come in and has a budget of $500 per month. Let's also assume that the client is a "one man band" (up to 5 people), is less than 2 years old, and has no other marketing budget set aside.

1. Expectations of Hours Spent

When I was a freelancer much earlier on in my career I said yes to pretty much any job that fell in my lap. While this was great at the beginning, over time I found that I was working too much in proportion to what my client was paying. As it was early in my career, I was perfectly willing to work extra hours to ensure client retention. But eventually there came a point where it was too much.

Solution

Create an hourly rate and stick to it, even before any contract is signed. Here, the client has $500 to spend each month and you have to consider any outgoings you may have attached to that budget. An example would be to charge $75 per hour, giving you 6 hours of work per month plus $50 to spend.

This expectation may not please your client as that $500 is important to him/her. Six hours may not sound like a lot, but this has to be fair on you too. For $500 the client can't expect a "virtual member of staff" who is on call to answer everything at any point – especially if your hours are fulfilled. The client has to remember that you will have many clients just like him/her, and that they too will have their own expectations.

2. Managing Those Limited Hours Wisely

The term "SEO" is now only part and parcel of a general online marketing strategy that requires work on various aspects, including on-site, content, outreach, CRO, analytical research, social media integration, and reporting. For that $500, you will have to manage this each month to ensure that they have the best quality work done with consideration of that budget, noting that month-on-month you will have to concentrate on different things.

Solution

Each month you will have to set out how much time you want to spend on each task. You can make it slightly easier using a project management document to ensure everything is organized for all clients. Luckily I have created a free project management template for Google Drive which can help you with this.

One thing to note: the client should always be informed of your plans ahead of time as their priorities may not match your own. Concentrate more perhaps on converting visitors rather than sacrificing the majority of your time with outreach.

3. Sacrificing or Simplifying 'Non-Essential' Tasks

Managing those hours may still be tight for you. If you're faced with a task that could potentially take 2 hours to complete, you should seriously consider if there is a way to compress it into a one hour task without loss of quality to the client.

Solution

Create an extremely simple report containing limited data that will, in effect, reduce the time it takes you to produce it. One tip here would be to include less commentary or create a streamlined Google Analytics Dashboard for your client to view that can give them up-to-date information without you having to produce another section about analytics in your report.

Something else to consider is logging the work you do. Trello and Toggl will help you out with this, but having to report on every minute detail of your work is inefficient and has no real value to anyone when the general budget is small – there's no need to log every email you send just for the sake of the client if you're organized enough.

Agree on KPIs

You need to understand the client's business from the outset. The client is investing a lot in you despite having no guarantees of any ROI – SEO is something that can't be measured or forecasted with precision (especially with low budgets), and SEO takes quite a few months to see real results.

However, you still need to decide on what these key performance indicators (KPIs) are and you need to ensure that the client understands that short tail is pretty much impossible unless their short tail keyword targets is a general long tail.

Solution

Let's say that the client is an accountant. You need to ensure that you know what their average client makes for them as one client may make them $2,000 per annum (assuming that the client keeps them year-on-year).

I would also advise to have an agreement of no less than 6 months so that the client understands that no work you do will show any real effect for at least 3 months and that you will need months 4, 5 and 6 to analyze results and prove you have fulfilled your agreed KPIs.

Try to Increase Budgets over Time

Let's say that 6 months have now passed and you've fulfilled the KPIs you agreed at the beginning of the contract. The client may insist that no ROI has been generated, however, you must refer back to your agreed KPIs – if you fulfilled them, then you did your job correctly. Of course, KPIs will be connected to ROI, but sometimes the work you do is only so much.

Using the accountant as a client example again, one KPI would be that you need to increase conversions where a conversion would be defined as an email form completion or telephone call. Once that email is sent or call is placed you have no control as to whether that conversion will turn from a lead into a client for many reasons – the client may not be able to service that lead as intended, there may be a seasonal slump, or the salesman answering the calls and emails may not be good him/herself at converting leads.

Solution

Translate to the client, and be clear, that fulfilling KPIs and ROI aren't always the same thing and ROI is something you can't solely control and therefore can't be held to it to decide on any renewal.

You may also want to suggest (if your first 6 months can prove it) that their budget needs to be increased to show more significant results. The client may always say that they intend to increase their budget, but until they actually do it, they simply won't receive what they expect to receive.

How to Use Google Trends for SEO

Google Trends is one of the best and most versatile tools available for SEO. It is the marketing 

equivalent of the Leatherman or Swiss Army knife. If you could only use one SEO tool to develop an Internet marketing campaign, this product would be a serious contender.

Working with Google Trends

When performing a search on Google Trends, you have the option to set four variables or parameters (default shown in bold):

• Web Search – Image search – News Search – Product Search – YouTube Search
• Worldwide – Option to choose a specific Country
• 2004-Present – Past 7 Days – 30 Days – 90 Days – 12 Months- Choose a Year
• All Categories – Arts & Entertainment – Autos & Vehicles – Beauty & fitness – Books & literature – Business & industrial – Computers & electronics – Finance – Food & drink – Games

You can compare up to five search terms or groupings at one time, with up to 25 search terms in each grouping.

For example:

• pen + pencil + paper (grouping 1)
• stapler + tape + notebook + ruler (grouping 2)
• eraser + paper clip (grouping 3)

By using the + sign between your search terms you are telling Google that you want to include searches for pen or pencil or paper.

Google also displays Hot Searches and Top Charts in Google Trends, listing the top searches of the day as well as popular searches by category.

Having all of this data available is great, but knowing what to do with it is even better. Following is a guide on how to use this information for SEO.

Keyword Research

Since Google Trends doesn't give actual search numbers, it works best when used in combination with the Keyword Planner. Google Trends will show a "normalized" or relative level of interest over time for a prospective keyword phrase. It also allows you to compare the level of interest among potential target phrases.

Let's say you're selling car parts. When does interest in car parts peak? What potentially drives more traffic; the search phrase "car parts" or "auto parts"?

In this example, I set the parameters for the U.S. from 2004 - present. We can see that Americans are most interested in "car parts" at the onset of summer. It is also clear they search for "auto parts" 4X as often as "car parts". There is a general upward trend in searches for auto parts, albeit a mixed bag over the last 12 months. Good to know when optimizing a campaign.

How about ecommerce potential? Use product search as a parameter to find out:

Product Searches have more than doubled since fall 2010. Clearly, the interest is there, but you should do a competitive analysis, before jumping into any space.

Geo-Targeting

Google Trends breaks down the search data by region. As you can see below, there is some level of interest in auto parts across the entire U.S., with the greatest level coming from Georgia and Florida.

Drill down further and you will see that Atlanta is a particularly strong market:

If you're doing local SEO or geo-targeted PPC, this data is invaluable.

News Jacking

Newsjacking suddenly, is all the rage in SEO. According to David Meerman Scott, it's "the process by which you inject ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business."

If Hot Searches didn't exist, someone would create it for newsjacking. The newsjacking formula is a simple one:

• Choose a trending topic.
• Blog about it.
• Tweet it (using the established hashtag).
• Don't be a moron (e.g., don't try to capitalize on tragedy).

Here's a great example of newsjacking in Bongo Bongo land.

Content Creation

Top Charts is the perfect resource for developing content ideas that people are actually interested in. Sticking with the car parts theme, navigate to Car Companies, click on "BMW", then click on "explore" in the right column.

Looks like a blog post about the BMW i3 and / or the BMW electric car would garnish some interest. If the term "Breakout" appears under Rating, the searches for that phrase have jumped by +5,000 percent.

Link Building

Links are still a primary driver of rankings. By creating content that people are looking for and want to read, you will attract links. Links are a measure of success when reviewing the outcome of your content marketing efforts.

Video Content

Poop. That's right; poop is the top result when I do a Google Trends search for "YouTube" with the search parameter set to YouTube:

I sure wasn't expecting to find an explosion of YouTube Poop (+250 percent since '08) and that's precisely the point of using this tool for video content research. Congratulations to California, with a search volume index of 100 on this one.

To play this game at home:

• Navigate to Google Trends.
• Enter your keywords.
• Change "Web Search" to "YouTube" search.
• Brainstorm
  • Is there an idea that you can use for your niche?
  • Is there a trend that you can capitalize on?

This data may also be used for video optimization:

• Creating great titles.
• Using the right tags.
• Optimizing descriptions.

Brand Monitoring

This one only works for "big Brands" with sufficient search volume. In the case cited below, three of four competitors are static, but one company is clearly in the zone. AutoZone.

Takeaway

Google has a voracious appetite for fresh topical content. Google Trends is the single best tool available to develop content ideas that will garner traffic and links. If you haven't been using this tool for SEO purposes, you should check it out now.

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Google May Be Updating Their Algorithm But They Won’t Confirm It

oday, September 4th, and last week, August 21st, there were huge spikes in chatter amongst the SEO and webmasters about the Google search results shifting and changing.

In short, many SEOs and webmasters were complaining that their rankings in the Google search results have declined drastically. In addition, many sent me images of their analytics, showing a clear significant drop in traffic from the Google organic source.

I asked Google about both these updates, and for each one, they said they have “nothing to announce.” Meaning, they won’t confirm if there was or was not an update.

We can confirm that the various search results monitoring tools, such as Mozcast, SERPs.com, SERP Metrics and Algoroo all showed volatility on August 21st. Since the September 4th chatter began this morning, we will have to wait for tomorrow to see if the tools show activity for today (the tools are about 24 hours delayed).

Although, there are hundreds of comments on the August 21st post and well over fifty comments on the September 4th post in less than seven hours.

Google does not always confirm updates but we think you should be aware that on August 21st and September 4th, there was enough noise to report to you that Google may have done some sort of algorithmic update.

For more info on the more popular Google updates, see our Google Panda and Google Penguin categories.

Is there any SEO Company in Gujarat ? ?

Yes of course… there are lots of SEO companies in Gujarat. While searching for SEO Company it’s equally important, you make sure about the quality of service it offers.

There are so many companies that do black hat SEO activities which may drop off your ranking and also there are chances to lose visibility from Google. Black hat activates may give fast results so, for the short time you can get benefit but for long time it can diminish your business. So while choosing SEO company, be careful by selecting the SEO company that follows ethical activities and Google standards.

Benefits of choosing SEO company in Gujarat:

• - Affordable rates
• - Guaranteed results
• - Timeliness
• - 24/7 availability

We The Developers – one of the leading SEO companies in Gujarat offers Guaranteed Google Page 1 Ranking service at a very affordable rate. Hurry !!! Take the advantage and give your business a new dimension …

Advantages and Benefits of Hiring SEO Company

There are lots of Advantages and Benefits of Hiring SEO Company for your own business or services which you are offering to your clients.

See, If one does not have enough knowledge about SEO and he/she themselves take any decision to promote their website in Google then there are highest chances to miss important aspects which may break company’s growth in this high competitive business environment.

Let’s see few Benefits and Advantages of Hiring SEO Company…

- Fully Dedicated Team

- Perfect SEO Plan

- Point to Point SEO Strategy

- Dynamic SEO Changes as per Search Engine Algorithm

- Research of Keywords for Advance Next Gen Business.

These are the main Benefits and Advantages of Hiring SEO Company for your corporate business. Again Hiring SEO Company, will deduct your burden of inhouse SEO which may take more time and less output.

If you are in search of Hiring any SEO Company then you must check above quality in all available options of SEO Companies from which you are going to choose a final one…

All The Best….for “ Better Search Ranking in GOOGLE ” ! ! !

PHANTOM – What’s Effect of Latest Google Update “Phantom” on SEO ? ?

First PANDA, then PENGUIN and now it’s PHANTOM…

It’s look like, if some would like to hire SEO Firm for their Search Marking Company they just need to hire GOOGLE Only.

As day by day, GOOGLE launching new algorithm in the Search Engine having small or large effects on different search queries. A single point missing in overall SEO Plan of any corporate company, may harm them in negative graph, that’s the current scenario of SEO.

There are lots of factors, few are new and rest other seo points must be in co-ordination with each other to require desired outputs in Google Search Engine.

Few of WeTheDevelopers Clients, which were affected by old Google Updates PANDA and PENGUIN have recovered few seo points from this latest update “PHANTOM” in Search Ranking on Google.

In initial day, you must have heard about lots of guess about effects of this new PHANTOM updates, but that all are JUST Guess, nothing else. One need to give a time of 1 month or 2 to get perfect output to study the result of any update, like we have described in above pera.

4 Reasons to Spend More on SEO

Google has made dramatic changes in 2013, with the May 22 Penguin update having the biggest impact for small business websites. After some severe reductions in traffic, some webmasters are at least seeing traffic increases in August due, in part, to a Panda softening from Google.

In response, many webmasters are making big shifts in SEO tactics. While long overdue, this is the right move.

Few businesses are looking to move to lower quality SEO services as they now fear Google more than ever. But small businesses run very close to the margin and traditionally resist increasing the SEO budget, regardless of the consequences. Here are four reasons why small business owners should reconsider.

1. Google Asked You To

While many will dismiss this as PR, Google has clearly communicated that they no longer will tolerate SEO tactics that used to work in 2008. Article spinning, keyword stuffing, excessive bookmarks, reborn domains, paid links, thin content, and duplicate content are all not OK.

Even if you haven't received an unnatural link warning, the writing is on the wall. Quality must increase for continued success in SEO. While this message is clearly self-serving for Google, it's important to respect their power in the industry.

2. Recovering From Google Updates is Expensive

There are plenty of websites that have partially recovered from Penguin downgrades, but each case is different. The level of returning traffic varies.

Technical issues on-site are the easiest to fix and should be addressed quickly using Webmaster Tools as the guide. Duplicate content needs to be removed immediately.

Keyword-stuffed titles need to be edited. Thin content, a favorite among many, should be replaced with real content marketing.

Off-site issues, such as bad link building, are particularly hard to fix. It is very ironic that firms now exist to send "link removal request" emails to other firms who were previously retained to build those links.

Small business needs to stop doing bad link building and embrace content marketing. They need to get creative and experiment with newsjacking.

All of these activities cost money. Smart business owners are thinking toward the future and deciding to spend more on SEO now (via higher quality services) to avoid repeating this activity in 2014.

3. SEO Has Merged With Marketing

Many small business webmasters were using a "set-it-and-forget-it" SEO strategy, believing that they need not worry about SEO after hiring a firm. This violates one of the major tenets of business process outsourcing, which is to outsource process and execution, but maintain strict performance monitoring and accountability.

It isn't surprising that many small businesses are feeling buyer's remorse, wishing they had done greater due-diligence in the vendor selection process and better understood the risks associated with SEO.

It should be clear at this point that SEO is no longer a technical exercise and is rapidly merging with marketing and public relations. Smart CEOs recognize the strategic importance of SEO in our digital world. For this reason, they find ways to amplify SEO in allmarketing activities. Ironically, many companies have SEO opportunities they don't harness.

For example, every employee should maintain a "work" Twitter account and share industry news, blog posts and company specials to help spread content. This type of integrated SEO marketing execution is the future, and will draw more budget dollars.

4. SEO ROI Remains High

The data suggests that SEO is still a great investment. This means that small business shouldn't necessarily shop for the cheapest SEO vendor, but consider the return they can make on their money if they spend more:

• SEO remains a very high ROI activity.
• The cost-per-lead for SEO is still very attractive.
• Google has significantly tightened the requirements for high-quality SEO.
• Integrated marketing strategies have big efficiencies.

Conclusions

All technologies and industries mature, and price-points typically change dramatically along the way. SEO is following the same playbook as most other young industries.

In the last few years we have seen SEO move from infancy to adolescence, with the Google algorithm updates as mileposts. While SEO will become more difficult and expensive to execute, the return on investment remains high for small business. In the end, ROI is more important than the absolute number of a budget line item.

Using Google Keyword Planner (and Other Tools Instead) for Keyword Volume

While far from a perfect tool (seriously skewed toward "commercial intent," not always inclusive of trend data, difficult to drill down into local terms), the Google Keyword Tool was one of the best keyword research tools available. The keyword volume numbers were more trustworthy than other keyword tools, simply because they came right from the source—who better to know what kind of search volume keywords get than Google itself?

With Google's recent announcement that their free Keyword Tool has gone away, replaced with their integrated PPC tool the Keyword Planner, a cry has gone up from SEOs: "What do we do now?"

Google Keyword Planner pros and cons

With the advent of the Keyword Planner, Google is making a strong statement that they'll continue to focus on supporting PPC advertisers rather than organic search marketers. To that end, the Keyword Planner is heavily focused on PPC ads; you even have to sign up for an AdWords account to use it (although you don't have to enter any payment information, and would only end up paying for the tool if you created and launched an ad). That said, the tool definitely retains some SEO utility.

Pros of Google Keyword Planner:

• Users can now view keyword volume on a hyper-local basis; I was able to view search volume not only for the Oklahoma City area, but even drill down into Norman, the smaller OKC-area town where I live. This is great for businesses doing local and hyper-local SEO to get a better idea of the volume and competition in their geographic area.
  
  
  
• The tool divides keywords up into suggested ad groups; this is designed to be a PPC-focused feature, but does provide some insight into which keywords Google deems to be semantically/topically related.
• The "multiply keyword lists" feature allows you to search on combinations of words from two different lists. This allows you to combine your terms with modifiers such as location or color and compare search volume without having to concatenate in Excel.
• Users can filter out keywords below a certain search volume, so you don't even have to look at them.
• Since you have to be logged in to use the tool, users aren't limited to 100 words like we were with the logged-out version of the old tool.

Cons of Google Keyword Planner:

• The ability to select Broad, Phrase or Exact match has been removed—only Exact match data is now available.
• "Average monthly searches" is calculated over 12 months, meaning the Keyword Planner isn't a good place to research trending topics. Use Google Trends for that.
• The option to only search for words closely related to your term has been removed. However, Google has said they will probably add it back in.
• Device targeting is gone—no more segmenting volume for desktop vs. mobile searches. This means volume numbers are, in general, higher for the Keyword Planner than they were for Keyword Tool since those two buckets have been combined.
• "Local" vs "Global" search volume is no longer automatically displayed. Instead, Global (which Google is now calling "all locations") is the default and users must drill down into specific locales for local search volume. To me, the added functionality around location targeting makes this a mixed blessing, but users will probably miss the easy comparison of seeing Local and Global side-by-side.

Alternative tools for keyword volume

Of course, for some of us, this latest example of data hoarding on Google's part is the last straw. Here are some other places you can look for keyword volume. Since the Google Keyword Tool was free, I kept these options to tools that are free or have a free option (which is why I didn't include the Moz Keyword Difficulty and SERP Analysis tool, even though I love it, since it's only available to paid Moz subscribers).

Google Webmaster Tools impression data

Anyone with a Google Webmaster Tools verified site can view how often their site has shown up for certain keywords.

Pros:

• This data still comes from Google itself.

Cons:

• Because it only shows how many impressions your site got from a keyword, GWT Impression data can't be used to research terms you're not already ranking for.
• There are disputes about the accuracy of the data—the consensus among SEO pros is that it's less reliable than the Keyword Tool data was.

Bing Keyword Tool

The Bing-provided alternative to the Google Keyword tool goes a long way toward making up for the tool's departure. It's what we use in our Keyword Difficulty and SERP Analysis tool.

Pros:

• Users can narrow searches by date range, to more accurately track recent search data.
• Recent keyword volume trend data displays alongside other metrics.
• A "strict" filter acts like the old "closely related" filter in Google's Keyword Tool.
• The tool is in Beta, so it's likely we'll continue to see more features and improvements as the Bing team keeps working on it.

Cons:

• Because this data comes from Bing, which has fewer users, all search volume numbers will skew lower than they would in Google.
• Geographic drilldown is only available at the country level.
• Users must be signed in to a Bing Webmaster Tools account with a verified site in order to use the tool (but you should be checking Bing Webmaster Tools anyway, it's free and there's a lot of good stuff in there).

Keyword Planner has replaced Keyword Tool

With Keyword Planner, we've combined the functionality of Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to make it easier to plan search campaigns. That's why Keyword Tool is no longer available. You can use Keyword Planner to find new keyword and ad group ideas, get performance estimates for them to find the bid and budget that are right for you, and then add them to your campaigns.

Note

The external Keyword Tool is also no longer available. If you want to get keyword ideas using Keyword Planner, make sure to sign in to your AdWords account.

We've also added several new features with Keyword Planner. As you start to use Keyword Planner, you'll likely notice some differences between Keyword Planner and Keyword Tool. Read on to learn more about what has changed.

No match type data for search volume

With Keyword Tool, we showed you broad match statistics by default with the ability to get data for other match types, like phrase and exact match. But with Keyword Planner, you'll get historical statistics only for exact match. To decide what match type to use, add the keyword idea to your plan and review the traffic estimates for each match type. This change will help you get an accurate estimate of how much traffic you can expect to get with different match types. There’s quite a bit of overlap between broad and phrase match keywords, and the search volume statistic in Keyword Tool didn't take that overlap into account. Traffic estimates like click and cost do take this overlap into account, so checking those can help you decide which match type to use.

For example, let's say your keyword is dark chocolate. If you want to check that keyword's average monthly searches, we'll show you the same stats whether you use a broad, phrase, or exact match type with dark chocolate. Traffic estimates like clicks and cost, on the other hand, do take into account keyword match types. For example, if you get estimates for a list of broad match keywords, we'll take into account any overlap between those keywords.

No device targeting

Keyword Planner doesn’t let you specifically target mobile devices, like tablets and mobile phones. By default, it targets all devices, which is in line with recent changes made to AdWords campaigns. We’re working on a feature that’ll allow you to get traffic estimates by device type and set bid adjustments for mobile devices.

Note

In general, you'll notice that the average search volume data is higher in Keyword Planner as compared to the exact match search volume data you got with Keyword Tool. That's because we'll show you the average number of searches for a keyword idea on all devices (desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and mobile phones). With Keyword Tool, we showed you average search volume for desktop and laptop computers by default.

Other changes in the data columns

In Keyword Planner, you'll notice several different data columns than those that you were used to seeing in Keyword Tool. Here are the differences:

Local monthly searches and global monthly searches: These two columns have been replaced by the "Average monthly searches" column, simplifying the search volume data you can get. The average monthly search volume is specific to your targeting settings, and you can get data for an entire country or individual cities and regions within a country. Note that you can still get global monthly search data by targeting all locations.

Ad share: This column is being replaced with a new column called ad impression share to help you look for potential impressions.

Google Search Network: This column has been replaced by the network option within the targeting settings. To get data for the entire Search Network, select the "Google and search partners" targeting option.

Search share: This column has been retired.

Approx. CPC (Search): This column has been replaced by the "Avg. CPC" column. You'll get more accurate data in the average cost-per-click column than you did in the approximate cost-per-click column.

Local search trends: This column doesn't appear in the Keyword Planner interface. However, you can still get search volume trends by hovering over the icon in the "Avg. monthly searches" column. You can also see these trends segmented by month when you download your historical statistics from Keyword Planner.

Extracted from webpage: This column has been removed from the Keyword Planner interface. However, you can still get the webpage the keyword idea came from when you download your historical statistics from Keyword Planner. Note that you'll only get this data when you search for keyword and ad group ideas based on a URL, like a webpage on your website.

Next steps

Learn how to use Keyword Planner.

Get more details about the historical statistics and performance estimates you can get with Keyword Planner.

Keywords

Using Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas and traffic estimates

Understanding your Keyword Planner statistics and traffic estimates

Keyword Planner has replaced 

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