Google Releases “Overture Score”-Like Tool
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
Enhancement to keyword tool provides domainers with more accurate tool to forecast domain traffic.
“Three cheers for Google!”
That’s not something you hear many domainers say these days. But Google has just released a new feature on its Keyword Tool that will bring a smile to domainers’ faces: search volumes.
The tools is similar to the famed Overture inventory tool that showed you how many times someone searched for a particular keyword or domain. For example, if you searched for Car.com, the Overture tool would tell you the number of times people searched for “Car.com” during any given month. Domainers used this information to estimate type-in traffic on domain names before buying them.
Previously, Google provided only a bar graph of estimated traffic along with estimated clicks for ads in the top three spots.
The new feature has some quirks that will take some working out. You’ll notice that car.com shows “insufficient data” for search volume but “car com” shows 550,000 searches. I imagine “car com” includes car.com but it may also include other variants.
Regardless, this is a huge boon for domainers. I can’t say the same thing for the myriad of other keyword search estimation tools. Next up, Google appears to be taking on Alexa.com and Compete.com with its “Trends for web sites” tool.
By the way, the Overture Score tool (inventory.overture.com) is officially dead. It kept popping up every once in a while, but now the URL forwards to the Yahoo Small Business page. R.I.P.
Further Reading:
Tags: adwords, google, Overture, overture score
“I can’t say the same thing for the myriad of other keyword search estimation tools.”
Hi Andrew:
Not sure what you meant by the above.
Thanks,
C
Essentially, Google could really cut into their business because of its large data pool. They will need to build tools that enhance Google’s data.
This tool has been around for a while and I have hand regged domains based on the search volume estimates.
Guess what, I don’t see any correlation between often searched keywords (keyword keyword) and domain names (keywordkeyword.com).
Doesn’t mean it’s a bad tool but don’t go crazy and hand reg all the high frequency search keywords as domains.
Want a tip though to see what names are available…
Do you keyword search then download the results as the .txt file.
Copy all. Paste into godaddy bulk reg tool. Sumbit.
No need to remove spaces. Godday will tell you which line .com is taken or available.
Great if you are into bulk hand regs. Might be worth a few hundred dollars to speculate.
Rob, the tool has been around but not the numerical search estimates. Google is now advertising:
“You can now see statistics on the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords. This data allows you to better plan your budget and pick keywords most likely to return quality leads, which in turn can help improve your ROI.”
Crikee! That is good news!
They only let me search a couple keywords then I get blocked…whats up with that?
We’re sorry…
… but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application.
My company manages about 100 PPC campaigns for large clients. For the most part, looking at client data regarding exact search volume and the adwords tool approximate search volume for many specific keywords shows that the tool underestimates the actual search volume. I’m sure this is not the case for all keywords but I do see this on a lot of the larger keywords…
@ WQ – how many is a couple? They’re probably being very careful since Overture’s system was always bogged down by bots.
@ Drew – does that include the content network as well? I believe Google’s data includes its site and the search network.
I’m sure it’s not exact. The key will be for the community to get a decent read on the correlation between what Google shows and what actually happens.
Andrew,
My analysis was done in looking at client campaigns running on Google + Search network (net of content network). In some ways, it reminds me of compete site data – the relative volume numbers seems accurate in terms of keyword vs. keyword but the approximate searches are way off. I agree that it does give a very decent read though. It will be interesting to see the approximate search volume trend daa monthly if and when that is rolled out.
Thanks Drew. It will be interesting to see how this evolves.
>>@ WQ – how many is a couple?
I can search 2 or 3 keywords before getting blocked.
There’s gotta be a way to fix that.
WQ, are you logged in? I’m not having the same problem.
>>WQ, are you logged in?
Not into an Adwords account, but I am now and it works fine.
Last time I used this tool you didn’t need an Adwords account.
Thanks
@ WQ – Google must have thought this one through…
[...] score” type of tool that lets you see estimated search counts for keywords. (See Google Releases “Overture Score”-Like Tool.) Tool providers that cater to the search and domain businesses have been working overtime to use [...]