Thread: Google to limit access to keyword data

A friend linked me to this today: Google moves to secure searches, alienates SEO jockeys

Basically, they'll switch logged in Google users to encrypted search results, limiting access to keyword data, except for advertisers.

At first I thought Google is really trying to kill SEO. I mean, first we had Panda, and now this. It might not be so dramatic though, as Michael Martinez said here: "It’s funny. You’ll get better data from Google Webmaster Tools’ query report and you can tie that to Google Analytics (or use tools like Keyword Strategy to cull the data) and here people are acting like it’s the end of the SEO keyword research world. Did I dropped from the PANIC MEMO distribution list AGAIN?"

Third party SEO keyword tools might still be impacted though. What do you make of it?

I've noticed that after a few searches I sometime get a message that I need to log in. Not sure whether they are trying to save bandwidth or limit access to keyword data. The Overture keyword tool was abandoned way back in January 2007. Probably to cut costs.

Another angle on this is liability for Adwords and “Google AdWords Keywords Suggestions”. I found this Google abandons AdWords Keyword “Suggestion” Tool | Read all about IT discussing regarding Louis Vuitton’s suit against Google. The Court ruled Google may be held to account for helping advertisers to sell fakes. The article goes on to say "Google appears to have acknowledged that its Keyword Suggestion Tool was a liability."

This means getting some data for future site developments would be useful

If they limit the use of the Keyword Tool to advertisers, all you would have to do is open an AdWords account, which costs $5 and you can easily get $100 in credit using a voucher. That is cheap for the use of the Keyword Tool. They have been providing more information to advertisers who are logged into their accounts for quite a while, so they could easily cut off access to non-advertisers. If you do not have a credit card or cannot open an account, you may be hosed.

If they eliminated the Keyword Tool entirely, that would be a serious problem because many of the keyword analysis tools use Google data. Plus I have never trusted WordTracker data due to the nature of their sources.

Shutting all those crappy tools down would again turn SEO into an art, more than into a money game.

My 2 cents.

Hmmm, Didn't Will post a while back that SemRush uses Google data??? Wonder if this is yet another money stream for Google potentially??? You want our data API-like for your tool? Cowboy up some money then...use it for individual/manual lookups, no problem, register with Adwords and sign-in then so we can track what you're looking up...don't like it? Find a new Sandbox...

They've required sign-in for a little bit now to see the avg price per keyword from what I've seen. Requiring an account after a random number of searches seems to be in-line with a number of other free online tools.


J

This will require SEOs to be more creative in terms of where they get their keyword data. I like TopDoggers suggestion to simply open up a Google Adwords account if you can. Also, you can usually estimate volume if you have rank and traffic received by applying some traditional click distribution models (i.e. if you are ranked #1, you could divide your traffic by .4 and back into a volume number. This assumes you have rank, traffic and an idea of some good click distribution by rank.

Also, you can usually estimate volume if you have rank and traffic received by applying some traditional click distribution models (i.e. if you are ranked #1, you could divide your traffic by .4 and back into a volume number. This assumes you have rank, traffic and an idea of some good click distribution by rank.

Can you please this lines. I did not understand it.How to divide traffic..