Adwords Keyword Tool blocked for non-adwords accounts?
As a publisher who uses Google Adsense, I’m a regular user of Google’s Adsense Keyword Tool.
The tool, previously accessibly to anyone, allows publishers and advertisers (both potential and current), to look up a whole host of values specific to certain keywords.
Sometime in the last 24 hours Google went ahead and blocked access to the Adwords Keyword Tool to users who don’t have an Adwords account.
When I attempted to browse the Adwords Keyword Tool today I was presented with the message;
You’re signed in to Google Accounts under the email (email removed) and your Google Account password, but this is not a valid AdWords login. If you’re an AdWords advertiser, try signing in using your AdWords email and password.
As a publisher who’s not interested in paying for traffic, isn’t selling a product or looking to target a niche audience I’ve got no use for a Google Adwords account.
As a publisher in the broader sense though I’ve definitely got other uses for the keyword tool. Whilst it doesn’t dictate what I do and don’t write about, if I’m writing about a particular subject the keyword tool has proven useful to gauge search numbers and alternative keywords related to the article topic.
This quick check has spawned off a number of separate articles on it’s own.
Finally of course there’s also the ability to gauge CPC estimates for specific keywords or search phrases. This I know is invaluable to a whole host of publishers, especially those who conduct research on keywords to build monetized websites around.
From Google’s perspective it doesn’t seem to make much sense to block the keyword tool for non-adwords accounts.
From an advertiser viewpoint it’s useful to see what your market rate is in order to evaluate whether the program is viable for you or not.
The only publishers who would be using the keyword tool would be those using Adsense. If these publishers are successful this increases Adwords business.
I’m not quite sure what the reasoning is but I do know for me personally it’s annoying. I fail to see what the benefit to Google is making me sign up to a service I’m not likely to ever use.
Hopefully they reverse this decision soon or at the very least offer a similar sort keyword tool for Adsense publishers.
I don’t have an Adwords account, sometimes I can acess the keyword tool and sometimes I’m locked out.
May 15th, 2010 at 3:19 am Ryan @ Linkbuildr(Quote)
I’m getting this too from Canada and it’s driving me nuts. I need the tool for work research, but don’t use Adwords at all. At least you can be quick about getting the data before they require you to login.
May 15th, 2010 at 3:28 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Yeah how annoying is it.
I’ve found that it works randomly if you load the keyword tool directly. Using the new interface, after verifying when you try a search the first time it seems to like to whinge but if you load it up again using the direct link in a new window it seems to work (it goes straight to search and bypasses the captcha verification.
I think this new adwords account check is instigated when the captcha system kicks in.
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:17 pm derr(Quote)
it so they can monitor more closely who is downloading their keyword data. By creating a new account google allows itself to add more regulations to its users. And also adds a little protection to there data.
With no user account then i could mine there database contiually until i got a pretty good idea of keyword distribution, and then i could sell that to advertisers, as you said it is valuable information to them.
Google can know block individual accounts through making you sign a new contract for the new account and can ban any account that they percieve as just used for farming their data.
IN this banning they just get banned from the adwords and the email account is left untouched.
February 22nd, 2011 at 4:15 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
I suppose that makes sense. I note Google have gone and done the same thing with Youtube now.
I went to watch a video and it told me I could no longer log in unless I associated my Youtube account with a Google account.
The bad news is you can only associate one Youtube account to a Google account so if you have more than one Youtube account but only one Google account, you’re kinda stuffed!