Many users are now seeing a change in the way that Google’s Keyword Ranking tool is providing competition data. Instead of the traditional bars to display competitiveness, Google is using text as the description.

Up until now, this tool used small green bars to display the competitiveness of keywords. The more green in the bar, the more competitive the term was:

Now the Google tool is only showing text-based descriptions of competitiveness: Low, Medium or High:

While the competitiveness has been replaced by text in the web version, the good news is that Google has maintained the granularity as to how this ranking was assigned. In the previous version of the tool, users could download a report to get the exact number that made up the green bar. This is still the case with the new changes. So users who require more information can still download the report to a spreadsheet and get the same information:

For any of those who regularly use this competition metric, the new competitive labeling is as follows:

• Low — Competitiveness number under .33
• Medium — Competitiveness number between .33 and .66
• High — Competitiveness number over .67

“This column shows the number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword.”

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | SEM Tools: Keyword Research | Top News

About The Author: Greg Finn is the Chief Marketing Officer for Cypress North, a company that specializes in social media and search marketing services and web-based application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 6+ years and specializes in Social Media Marketing. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn. See more articles by Greg Finn

Connect with the author via: Email