There have been reports around the Internet today about Yahoo Search Marketing canceling the Overture Keyword Selector Tool, which has been a staple of Keyword planning and search marketing for almost a decade.
Feeling that part of the search marketing world, and the tools dependent upon it, had been buried; I addressed concerns with the Yahoo Search Marketing Team & John Slade, Sr. Director, Global Product Management with Yahoo Search Marketing and found out that such is not the case.
John’s response:
First, I’d like to clarify that Yahoo! Search Marketing’s public keyword research tool (formerly known as the Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool- KST) continues to exist today and will continue to exist until we replace it with an improved product. Unfortunately, the responsiveness of this free tool is diminished due to the sheer volume of hits it receives each day, therefore browsers may time out and error pages may appear but it doesn’t mean that this tool has been removed.
Q: Are there any plans of offering a new YSM tool or API?
Yahoo does have plans to offer a new public keyword research tool, which would be hosted through Yahoo! and available to our API partners. We plan on making this new tool available later this year.
Q: Why was this not announced beforehand (or was it?)?
Since the public tool is still available, there isn’t anything to formally announce. However, when we launched our new advertising platform last quarter, it featured an improved keyword research tool (which we refer to as “protected” since it’s only accessible to advertisers who are logged into our system) to help advertisers discover more relevant and valuable keywords that fit their individual needs. We’ve been getting really positive feedback about this tool and we plan to continue to enhance this tool as we learn how advertisers interact with it.
Q: Is Yahoo hosting this tool somewhere else now?
As I mentioned before, the public tool continues to be available but my advice to our advertisers is to use the protected keyword research tool.
So it seems the Overture Keyword Selection Tool is not dead, it’s only on the fritz and hopefully Yahoo will get it back up and running again. I’m sure many in the Search Marketing industry will be happy to hear the news.
Is the Overture Keyword Selection Tool working for you? Please feel free to leave a comment below.
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Comments
19 responses so far ↓
Richard Ball (Keyword Tool) on Jan 30, 2007 at 5:00 pm
It’s down for me:
$ telnet inventory.overture.com 80
Trying 66.35.238.14…
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Attempt to connect timed out without establishing a connection
It’s been unreliable for awhile, though, so my tool uses KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker, as well.
Cavan Moon on Jan 30, 2007 at 9:11 pm
It’s been down for me for a while now. I looked into this last week but didn’t get much from Yahoo’s customer service. Thanks for providing this update. Overture, KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker all have their problems, but until recently, I’ve been satisfied with Overture. Hopefully this is fixed soon.
John Mann on Jan 31, 2007 at 1:08 am
The “regular” Overture keyword research tool is down for me.
Does anyone know how to access the protected keyword research tool mentioned in this article?
Birdie on Jan 31, 2007 at 2:54 pm
It has been down for a while, but I wish they would not replace it with the fake stats they have been working on, the one I read about had only graphs not numbers so it would not be as effective for what I do.
Hon Windy on Feb 7, 2007 at 2:31 am
I think it will become better and better~~~~
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izle on Feb 7, 2007 at 9:48 am
Great informations
Thanks
kraloyun on Feb 7, 2007 at 9:49 am
Very nice article
I recommended this article
Thanks
smartzul on Feb 7, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Overture is my fisrt tools when I’m doing keyword research.. It help me.. ;) But, I also use the another tools..
barbie oyunlari on Feb 8, 2007 at 11:00 am
very good news
I use this tools
thanks
CarstenCumbrowski on Feb 9, 2007 at 1:35 am
There are now free versions of Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery available which also helps.
Find more Keyword research tools and tools for competitive intelligence.
Hope that helps.
andrey on Feb 9, 2007 at 10:49 am
super thanks
derrich on Feb 19, 2007 at 10:43 am
Great article, Loren. And I found your suggestions to be helpful as well, Carsten. Thanks.
SEO Religion on Mar 6, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Hmmmm I’m not much concerned with this. Usually high traffic will put this site down right away.
But what I want up and running again is the YSM keyword bidding tool where you can see all bid prices.
It was good for PPC budget estimate proposals. But I guess they really need to take it out every since they implemented the landing page quality score.
Local Search on Feb 10, 2008 at 8:48 pm
It is 2-10-08 and it seems like the overture keyword tools is still down. I guess I will have to find another alternative for my local online marketing business. Right now I have been using Wordtracker does any one else have any suggestions on other keyword search tools?
Xianhong on Mar 11, 2008 at 12:16 am
I still can not open the site, i have no problem to open it last month, but i can not open it now. hope it will works soon.
Antonio on Apr 19, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Shame its a great tool.!
Dave on Jun 11, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Where is your keyword selector tool? This web page is really old stuff.
Ballet Class Music on Jul 12, 2008 at 1:00 am
Overture Keyword Tool has redirect now :(
praveen on Jul 22, 2008 at 12:39 am
Hmm, I tried to find the yahoo overture keyword suggestion tool but i am getting the yahoo marketing but there is absent of the overture.
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