Google’s Keyword Planner Not So Good at Planning

If you haven’t heard, Google’s been altering the most useful tool for most SEO’s in the world: the keyword planner.  In the forums, you’ll read messages like this:

Hello,

I’ve been working with the Google Keyword Planner Tool every month for the last 1.5 years. When I was looking at the Avg. Monthly Searches (see herehttps://i.imgsafe.org/0703908386.png), I noticed that the historic Search levels have increased by about 5k+. For example;

Jan-16 was 26390 (when I looked in May-16) and now it is 33980 (when I looked in Jun-16).

Feb-16 was 25380  (when I looked in May-16)  and now it is 31500  (when I looked in Jun-16).

Mar-16 was 24720  (when I looked in May-16)  and now it is 30520  (when I looked in Jun-16).

Apr-16 was 22050  (when I looked in May-16)  and now it is 27910  (when I looked in Jun-16).

According to an SEO Specialist Brisbane, who is well versed in the SEO industry, this increment has occurred for any list of keyword baskets that I input into the Keyword Planner Tool.  Previously, I’ve noticed that historic search levels fluctuate by about 100 or so, but never in the thousands. Does anyone know why there has been such a large increase in historic search levels? I have a theory that Google is now including something in this data which wasn’t there previously, e.g. Mobile Searches due to Google Now or something?

Any help in explaining this phenomenon is highly appreciated.

or in other threads like…

The differences in search numbers for plural and singular words is significant. See my chart below showing previous search numbers and current search numbers for the same words:

Google Adwords Keyword Planner
Search Count Differences

WEDDING CARDS – APRIL

Wedding Greeting Card 50
Wedding Greeting Cards 590

Wedding Anniversary Card 170
Wedding Anniversary Cards 880

WEDDING CARDS – JUNE

Wedding Greeting Card 880
Wedding Greeting Cards 880

Wedding Anniversary Card 1,000
Wedding Anniversary Cards 1,000

CHORE CHARTS – MAY

Chore Charts 3,600
Chore Chart 18,100

Kids Chore Chart 3,600
Kids Chore Charts 320

Magnetic Chore Chart 590
Magnetic Chore Charts 70

CHORE CHARTS – JUNE

Chore Chart 18,100
Chore Charts 18,100

Kids Chore Chart 3,600
Kids Chore Charts 3,600

Magnetic Chore Chart 720
Magnetic Chore Charts 720

According to SEMPost’s Jennifer Slegg, Google is now combining estimates for similar keywords.

Last week, Google made a change to the tool where instead of showing individual keyword estimates for each keyword or keyword phrase, Google is now lumping in the data together, meaning Google will show identical estimates for similar keywords or keyword phrases – advertisers will recognize this as Google combining search variants. You can no longer see individual estimates to see which of those has the highest volume and which the lowest, and valuable aspect for both advertisers and SEOs who are choosing which keywords to target based on volume .

As a result, it’s been reporting some funny numbers.  As Search Engine Land reported in their post: “What the heck is going on with Google Keyword Planner?” the data isn’t acting normal.

Search Engine Roundtable reports that Google’s dropped the “exact match” search estimates.