The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is in my opinion one of the most useful tools available on the web.  When you enter one or more terms or phrases, Google returns data on approximate number of searches for the terms you entered, as well as similar terms/phrases and their corresponding search volumes.  I tend to use this tool primarily for keyword research when I’m working on SEO efforts for my various websites, but I also believe that search data is immensely powerful for other applications as well.

While doing some SEO work the other day, I stumbled across a really interesting bug in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.  I found a stupidly simple way (no, I’m not the Chinese government and I didn’t hack Google) to extract some limited pricing data for the suggested keyword results when you enter one or more keywords or phrases into the tool.  I highly doubt Google wants this data to be public, which is why I’m assuming it’s a bug.

For example, when I entered “new york pizza” into the tool, I was able to extract the following pricing data (showing data for the first 10 results):

• new york pizza delivery    1 – 3    $1.91
• new york pizza    1 – 3    $0.93
• new york pizza menu    1 – 3    $0.34
• new york pizza restaurants    1 – 3    $0.66
• new york style pizza    1 – 3    $0.93
• new york pizza restaurant    1 – 3    $0.72
• new york ny pizza    1 – 3    $0.05
• best pizza new york    1 – 3    $1.23
• new york pizzas    1 – 3    $0.05
• new york pizza shipped    1 – 3    $0.05

What does it mean?

The way I interpret this data is that the average cost per click (CPC) for a sponsored search listing in the top three AdWords results will cost you the dollar amount shown next to each keyword.  For example, if you want to buy the first term “new york pizza delivery,” it’s going to cost you roughly $1.91 per click if you want to appear in the top 3 sponsored search positions.

How did you do that?

If you’re from Google, shoot me a note and I’m happy to discuss.  By the way, I just applied for a summer internship so bumping my application to the top gets a faster response