Targeting Keyword Ideas discrepancy between API and Keyword Planner

[Shah Warraich]

Hi,

Im generating keyword ideas for a given website using the TargetingIdeaService.

Using the API, I make the call to the service using the following parameters:

{

    "searchParameters": [

        {

            "urls": [

                "birleysandwiches.co.uk"

            ],

            "xsi_type": "RelatedToUrlSearchParameter"

        },

        {

            "languages": [

                {

                    "id": "1000"

                }

            ],

            "xsi_type": "LanguageSearchParameter"

        },

        {

            "locations": [

                {

                    "id": "2826"

                }

            ],

            "xsi_type": "LocationSearchParameter"

        }

    ],

    "ideaType": "KEYWORD",

    "paging": {

        "startIndex": "0",

        "numberResults": "100"

    },

    "requestedAttributeTypes": [

        "KEYWORD_TEXT",

        "SEARCH_VOLUME",

        "CATEGORY_PRODUCTS_AND_SERVICES",

        "COMPETITION",

        "AVERAGE_CPC",

        "TARGETED_MONTHLY_SEARCHES"

    ],

    "requestType": "IDEAS"

}

In response, I get 500+ ideas.

When I make the same call from the Keyword Planner Tool with location set to UK and language set to English I get a total of 72 ideas. Apart from an inconsitent number of ideas, the keywords retrieved from the planner are actually more relevant than the ones retrieved from the API.

Are there any additional parameters that I'm missing from the API? Or is this discrepancy expected to happen between the two modes of the service?

Thanks.

[Shwetha Vastrad (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Could you provide the SOAP XML request and response logs for the request made to the TargetingIdeaService? If you could also provide a screenshot of the Keyword search performed using the Keyword Planner tool, it would be really helpful. Please use Reply privately author when responding.

One of the reasons could be that the Keyword filter parameters or the DateRange would be different from the ones used in Keyword Planner tool. Also, TargetingIdeaService is not an exact API equivalent of the Keyword Planner tool. The TargetingIdeaSelector can be configured with different SearchParameters and results may vary significantly when different parameters are used. 

Regards,

Shwetha, AdWords API Team.