Catalyst Search Matters Search Marketing Blog

I don’t think anyone would argue that fact that the Overture suggestion tool is probably not the most accurate or effective keyword suggestion tool on the market today. Besides the fact that it still displays search volumes from January 2007, the accuracy of the numbers have been called into question over and over again because of things like plurals, apostrophes, and hyphens, etc muddling the results. That said, I noticed today that the tool filters out searches for some words (specifically narcotics related) and returns results of “no suggestions”- meaning essentially little or no query volume on those search terms - which is not only a poor business practice but it also does the advertiser a disservice by obfuscating market trends.

Let me elucidate the situation a bit. The company that I work for (and the owner of this blog) Catalyst online, is a search marketing firm that specializes in healthcare and pharma. As such we, on a regular basis, research search volumes for drug names, side effects, disease symptoms and the like, in order to develop keyword strategies for our clients.

Today I was looking up some search volumes on Overture for a medication that is indicated for nausea in cancer patients and those suffering from AIDS wasting (lack of appetite due to the disease). The medication is the synthetic form of a one of the chemicals in marijuana. However, according Overture, there are no searches on the keyword “marijuana treatment” or “medicinal marijuna” which are two common terms - although misnomers - for this medication. That seemed odd, so I broadened my search to just plain “marijuana”. Still no luck.

That’s when I realized that there may be some sort of word filter in the Overture algorithm that precludes suggestions for certain words by type - say, narcotics. So, in the interest of pure research and to get the the guys here in the IT network monitoring dept. buzzing, I did a bunch of Overture queries for drugs and derivatives to see where Overture was blocking results. Here are a few.

Nothing for marijuana treatment. What about marijuana…?

Nothing for marijuana, either. Wonder if i tried some slang. How hip will Overture be to the street slang? How about a search for “Mary Jane”?

Success! Tom Petty would be proud! What about Maui Wowi?

Success. Although that is a company name as well as being slang for wacky-tobacky. I guess Overture has some working to do before they build up their street cred.

Here are few more, just click the thumbnails to enlarge. You can “mouse over” to see the captions also.

In case so you think that the filter is to keep people from running ads about or bidding on drug searches, check out that last thumbnail. The point of all this, however silly this example may be, is that Overture’s tool is blocking or filtering results which makes it hard for search marketers - and more importantly - Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers (Yahoo’s customers), to make informed decisions as to what keywords to buy for their campaigns. Feel free to do some searches of your own and let us know in the comments what you find, or what you think about this.

UPDATE: I checked marijuana searches in Google’s Adword’skeyword tool and got plenty of suggestions. So what gives?