The Google AdWords community is scratching their heads this morning after trying to use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner and to find that it is only giving back data ranges when there is no campaign set up. The error being shown to these search marketers reads:
This page shows ranges for search volumes. For a more detailed view, set up and run a campaign.
Previously, you did not need to set up and run a campaign to get pretty accurate search volume metrics. But something changed this morning. Here is a screen shot:
Google's very own AdWords account on Twitter seems to be confused as well. They are telling those asking, they will look into it and get back to them. Here are those tweets:
@dasjanik Hi Janik, I'm just checking this for you, will reach out to you as soon as I have an update. -Po
— Google AdWords (@adwords) August 9, 2016
@RohanKagalkar Hi Rohan, I'm looking into this and I shall get back to you as soon as I have an update. -Po
— Google AdWords (@adwords) August 9, 2016
Meanwhile, many are very confused by the results the tool is now giving. They think the tool is broken when it might be just a change in policy to only give better data to those who are running campaigns.
Although that logic seems a bit wrong because some may want better data before deciding to run a campaign?
This change comes a month or so after a bug removing keyword planner access and starting false rumors.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: August 12, 2016: Google posted an announcement in the AdWords Help forum saying:
As of this week, previous technical issues affecting the Keyword Planner tool are now resolved. Some important updates to keep in mind:
- Most advertisers will see search volume data in Keyword Planner as usual.
- Advertisers with lower monthly spend may see a limited data view in the Keyword Planner. For example, you may see values such as 0, 1-100, 100-1K, 1K-10K, 10K-100K, 100K-1M, 1M+ in the average monthly searches column. In addition, other advertisers may trigger the limited data view by reaching a limit on the number of searches for search volume data (specifically, requests to our API).
- Access to traffic forecast data will remain unchanged.
