A couple of weeks ago, the Internet marketing world had been hit by what seemed to be wonderful news: Google AdWords Keyword Tool started showing actual numbers instead of vague graphs for search volume.

My Inbox was flooded with messages from all the newsletters I subscribe to, announcing the revolution. One of the marketing gurus went so far as to conclude: “it probably spells the end for services like Wordtracker.” Another guru couldn’t curb his enthusiasm: “Holy cow! Talk about shaking up the planet!”

The famous keyword research guru, Jim Morris, dedicated a post on his blog (nichbot.com) to the Keyword Tool revolution: “All of a sudden - there is no longer any confusion about how many times people are searching for a certain keyword phrase on Google.com.”

Jim Morris also published a screenshot of the 8 first results he got when he searched for keywords suggestions for “blogging” on AdWords Keyword Tool. The keywords are: blogging, blogs, blog, blogging software, radio blog, pink is the new blog, blog search, bad girls blog; then it shows 3 columns: Advertiser Competition, Approx Search Volume for last month, and Approx Average Search Volume.

Until July 2008, all three columns used to show a shaded bar, which was supposed to indicate the relative volumes, i.e. if the bar was completely green it supposedly indicated very high volume; half green equaled moderate volume etc. But now, the two search volume columns show actual numerical figures, while the first column, Advertiser Competition, still shows this shaded bar.

I checked the results Jim Morris got when searching “blogging.” The Advertiser Competition bar next to the keyword “radio blog” is 3/4 green - looks like a lot of competition, doesn’t it? Well, why don’t you search Google for “radio blog?” There must be tens of ads for that keyword, right? Wrong! Not even one ad! Neither when you use broad nor when you use phrase, neither in the U.S. nor in the UK nor in Canada (on 7/8/2008).

The next keyword phrase I checked was “bad girls blog.” The mysterious bar is 50% green, representing more than light competition (Or does it? Nobody knows what it actually represents. The question is, why is it a secret? Why doesn’t Google tell its customers the exact volume of competition?) Anyway, in the case of “bad girls blog,” again, there is not even one ad in the English speaking countries.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Google were just a search engine. But Google charges millions of people billions of dollars for AdWords, and a smart advertiser has to rely on the data that Google gives them to make intelligent decisions regarding his/her advertising campaign. If these data are extremely inaccurate, there is a good chance that most advertisers who use AdWords are pouring a fortune into Google’s pockets to no avail.