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.
