MSN’s Keyword Forecasting Tool

By Matt Mickiewicz | February 15, 2007 | Search Engine Marketing

MSN adCenter has released a cool keyword forecasting tool.

Type in one or more keywords and you’ll get a breakdown as to the number of searches over the past year, and the forecasted number of searches for the next few months. It’s a great way to do more accurate projections on your traffic and sales volume for the near future.

As well, MSN will provide you with data about the demographics of the people who are searching for that particular keyword, namely age and gender.

No MSN adCenter account is required to use the tool.

Written By:

Matt Mickiewicz

Matt is the co-founder of SitePoint and 99designs and Flippa. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

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{ 12 comments }

Azam.net March 9, 2008 at 12:15 pm: “Just used the tool for a few different keywords and each time there was a pretty steady history, then a huge incline for the future.”
Exactly the same here!
Doesn’t seem very accurate.
butternyk August 26, 2007 at 8:13 pm: looks a cool tool
michelangelo March 21, 2007 at 1:32 am: shame it is english language terms only. google trends does all languages.
TheAnarchist February 19, 2007 at 7:59 am: Seems pretty cool, but I have one complaint about it: using postbacks. The issue is similar to that described in Wyatt Barnett’s Sitepoint blog on 14 February 2007.
If it were changed such that I could choose what options I wanted (for example, when searching for multiple keyphrases, being able to choose to view the 2nd and 4th ones only, for easier comparisons), and then being given a button to make the changes happen when I was ready, I would be completely happy with it.
Matthew Magain February 16, 2007 at 1:16 pm: You might get better results for “Saddam” if you spelled the late dictator’s name correctly ;-)
Divine February 16, 2007 at 11:20 am: Drugs:
less then 18 of age are in LEAD, along with the mid-aged (kids and their parents?)
Cancer:
Females (literaly) OWN males ;)
Sadam:
Look at AGE and GENDER o.O (Error?)
Id say this is a FAIR tool.
Hasan Luongo February 16, 2007 at 2:51 am: Just used the tool for a few different keywords and each time there was a pretty steady history, then a huge incline for the future. I tried six of seven different and unrelated keywords and they all had a similar incline, seems a bit phishy
Ellia February 16, 2007 at 2:29 am: Really something new from MSN.
Obviously there is a lot to be expected from Microsoft this year.
Kailash Badu February 15, 2007 at 9:27 pm: when i searched on it, it generated the ugly error message that you see in a screwed up asp.net page.
mniessen February 15, 2007 at 9:53 am: Interesting tool!
Any idea how they forecast the traffic, though? The forecast for some search terms seems really odd (“cancer research”, for instance).
Sean February 15, 2007 at 6:17 am: Just a quick note to say you’ve got a small error in your post; ‘peoplw’ I guess should spell ‘people’. ;)
Thanks for the link!
XraySierra February 15, 2007 at 6:11 am: Wow, something innovative from MSN, well done.