If your favorite keywords went missing, they are probably back now
Could you imagine that no one on Earth was Googling the term “angel” a few months back?
We couldn’t imagine it either. But according to the Google Keyword Tool in May, there were no searches for the term “angel” within the Google search engine.
We were all amazed. A great deal of head scratching took place as we stared in disbelief at the computer screen.
The lack of responses included searches in all combinations of global and local; exact match and broad match settings didn’t yield any different results either.
Therefore, in May, it appeared “angel” had disappeared from searches in the digital landscape altogether, although we didn’t really believe that was the case.
It of course was not true, and thankfully for all the angel lovers in the audience, we’re happy to report that “angel” and hundreds of other popular phrases are now showing normal search popularity figures in the Google Keyword Tool.
[text_ad]
As you can see from the image above, the term “angel” is searched for 16,600,000 times per month in the broad setting and 246,000 times in the exact setting. Much higher than the zero results it had been getting for months…
This change in the Google Keyword Tool is a topic our Social Media Specialist Amanda MacArthur wrote about back in September. Many of our clients experienced significant drops in search volume. We ended up discovering that this was because Google eliminated their search partners from the results of search traffic.
These partners included some major companies like AOL, Shopping.com, AT&T, Ask.com and Mahalo.com among many others.
Originally the Google Keyword Tool showed all results from its own search engine and from its partners. Now it only shows its own results, although it may end up adding a new column having all results like before.
As to why many terms disappeared, it’s hard to say; although it’s believed that many terms did disappear as changes to the counting methodology of the Google Keyword Tool took place.
On the topic of the Google Keyword Tool, Don Nicholas, the Executive Director of Mequoda Group had this to say:
“We put so much faith in Google and the GKT to tell us what people are searching for. It’s disturbing to be told that a keyword phrase is not being searched for in Google when you “know” that it is. It’s like seeing someone standing in front of you as they are telling you they’re not really there.”
Google is always changing its tools and algorithms in order to be as efficient and effective as possible. This change in counting methodology didn’t necessary simplify our lives, but it did allow us to step back and take a look at the entire situation. We as online publishers can’t purely rely on Google to tell us everything, and that may have been the biggest lesson learned in this process.
However, it is great to see all our beloved keywords back, for everyone, especially now that they are reporting appropriate search volumes again.
