Search volumes and keyword suggestions for localized targeting is broken?

[Martin]

Hi!

We use the Google Adwords API 8.1 for java , but it's rather
irrelevant, we have noticed that also the online keyword tool (https://
adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) has the flaws we intend
to address.

Here is a summary:
When using local targeting Sweden/Swedish
1. There are no or very low search volumes for most keywords
(including big words like "iphone" and "fifa").
2. There is no or very little relevance of the keywords suggestions
for most of the big words.

Is something broken?

We know there has been work on the backend, but this must be a bigger
issue, right?

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi Martin,

There were some recent changes to the keyword tool backend that may be
leading to the behavior you're seeing. This blog post touches on some
of them:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/updated-keyword-tool-out-of-beta.html

Best,
- Eric Koleda, AdWords API Team

[Martin]

Hi Eric,

thanks for your reply. However, we cannot find the reason for the
behavior we experience, except for maybe this part of the post:

"In addition to these improvements, we’ve also changed how we
calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches.
Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic
only."

Surely the intended meaning is not only google.com data, but also data
from all other localized google.* sites (such as google.se, google.no,
and so on..)? Otherwise the purpose of localized keyword data seems
entirely disabled in the backend.

We should point out that this seems to be an issue with the whole
backend, since we experience this exact behavior (no search volumes
for even the "largest" of keywords) in the online AdWords Keyword Tool
and not only in the AdWords API.

Any ideas on how we approach this issue?

Best regards
--
Martin

On Sep 28, 4:20 am, AdWords API Advisor <adwordsapiadvi...@google.com>
wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> There were some recent changes to the keyword tool backend that may be
> leading to the behavior you're seeing.  This blog post touches on some
> of them:
>

>  http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/09/updated-keyword-tool-out-of-beta....

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi Martin,

We've seen some other cases recently where traffic seems significantly
lower than would be expected, even given the exclusion of search
partners statistics. We are following up with the core engineering
team and I'll post more information as it becomes available.

Best,
- Eric

[Martin]

Hi Eric,

we can se that there is work being done on the search volume issue.
However, search volumes still differ between keyword suggestions
(ideas request type) and search volumes (stats request type) from the
targeting idea service. In most cases the search volumes accompanying
keyword suggestions seem reasonable, but search volumes requested as
stats from the service are still missing or significantly lower than
those in the suggestions.

There are also duplicate keyword suggestions (same keyword occurring
more than once), with differing search volumes, from the targeting
idea service. Look specifically at suggestions for "säkerhetsdörrar"
using Swedish/Sweden as a local targeting seed to get an idea of the
problem. Our result contains two instances with high competition and
one with medium for the exact same word, when requesting high
competition suggestions.


Will there be work on the backend to correct this new behavior?


Best regards
--
Martin

[Bastien]

Hi Eric

I also confirm the issue in French/France targetting.
For instance, the keyword "polaris 280" (a popular swimming pool
robot) is reported with 1900 global / 880 local search volume in Exact
Match in the public Adwords External Tool, and with zero volume with
the API.
When do you think this is going to be fixed ?

Best regards
Bastien

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi All,

The engineering team has identified an issue where language filters
are used incorrectly in STATS requests. They are working to correct
the problem and should hopefully have a fix available within the next
week or so. For now the recommendation is to omit a language filter
for STATS requests.

Martin,

I'm not able to replicate the duplicate results problem you mentioned,
can you post the sanitized SOAP XML request and response that
demonstrates this issue?

Best,
- Eric

[Martin]

Hi Eric,

thanks for the notification. We are very pleased to see that work is
being done.

The issue with duplicate keywords seems to be resolved, so it's very
reasonable that you cannot replicate the problem. For future
reference, is there an easy way to generate the SOAP XML from the Java
API?

Best regards
--
Martin

On Oct 8, 7:08 pm, AdWords API Advisor <adwordsapiadvi...@google.com>
wrote:

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi Martin,

You can enable SOAP XML logging in the Java client library using the
instructions in the README:

http://code.google.com/p/google-api-adwords-java/source/browse/trunk/README#198

Best,
- Eric

[AdWords API Advisor]

Hi All,

I believe this problem has been fixed now.  Can you pleae re-run your tests and confirm?

Best,

- Eric