Warning: Don’t Use The Google Keyword Tool For SEO
By Anna Johnson on July 18th, 2008For anyone using or planning to Google’s keyword tool to select keywords for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes: DON’T.
In a recent blog post, Michael Van De Mar points out that Google’s Keyword Tool External is designed to help people select appropriate keywords to target for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising purposes, but the keywords generated do NOT necessarily reflect what keywords people are searching on in general.
He drew this conclusion after optimizing his webpages for the words suggested by the Google tool. Indeed, he achieved high rankings in the natural search engine listings on both Yahoo and Google, but got minimal clicks. His conclusion: Google’s keyword tool may indicate which keywords are worth targeting for PPC purposes, but NOT for SEO purposes.
The reasons? Firstly, the words generated by Google’s Keyword Tool External are based on data on Google’s search network, which includes everything from Ask.com to parked webpages, not on what people are searching on using the Google search engine, much less any other search engine. Secondly the keyword tool gives worldwide, not regional, numbers.
I agree with Mr Van De Mar. I don’t recommend using Google’s keyword tool for choosing keywords for which to optimize your webpages. Certainly not when there are better tools available, such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. However, the tool CAN be useful for REFINING your SEO strategy. For example, if you know what keywords are being highly contested (indicated by high bid prices) that’s a sign that there is value in those keywords.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Hi Anna,
I would like to first just commend your awesome article regarding Google’s Keyword Research Tool. Your article was professionally written and very resourceful; I really do commend you on your writing skills, it’s definitely one of the best styles I’ve seen on a blog yet.
Back on topic, I was wondering if you can possibly email me a good tool to search for keywords in conjunction with SEO. I’d like to be able to search for keywords and target the ones that are searched for the most. Do you know of any free online web tools that I can use to find information like this?
Awaiting your email, thanks Anna.
January 10th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Hi Justice,
Thanks for the feedback. If you use the search box to the right of this page and type in ‘keyword tool’ we have published several articles on this topic. That said, I do plan to cover the topic more comprehensively in the not too distant future. Stay tuned… or should I say subscribed
January 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
i don\’t agree with this. i optimized many websites with this tool and make them to list in some good position in google. it is one of the wonderful tool i ever seen.
January 16th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I agree , it\’s not perfectly accurate but surely wordtracker and keyword discovery can only garner data from Google anyway? The further from the source the less the accuracy i.e errors are compounded.
Also not sure about the comment about their being no goe targeting. Inside the tool you can select by country and the results seem accurate.
You are correct about it being imperfect as I\’m ranked front page for a phenomenal term \"real estate\" and there is no way I\’m getting anything like the traffic that one would expect …from the numbers in there
January 16th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Hi Real Estate,
Thanks for commenting! I think the main point is that Google’s tool is aimed at PPC not SEO. On that basis, it is not ideal for choosing keywords for SEO purposes.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I agree with real estate. Google SEO Keyword tool is geo targeted.
Other than that, I believe you made some good points.
August 3rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
that was some sort of good solution – there are some other good solutions available into the market but this sems
to be the best so far.. .
Quite a week, indeed.
November 18th, 2009 at 7:50 am
that was some sort of good solution – there are some other good solutions available into the market but this sems to