Start with the naming, because it causes real confusion: AdWords no longer exists. Google renamed the platform Google Ads in 2018, and the Keyword Planner inside it has been rebuilt more than once since. The version you use today has two modes, hides exact search volume behind spend, and is built for forecasting ad spend rather than for SEO research. Knowing that up front saves you from trusting numbers it was never designed to give you.
This piece covers what the current tool actually does, where every setting sits, how to read the columns without fooling yourself, the real accuracy limits, and the workarounds that get you closer to usable numbers without paying for a subscription tool.
Getting to the tool
Sign in to Google Ads. In the top navigation click Tools, then look under the Planning heading and click Keyword Planner. In some account layouts Tools appears as a wrench icon rather than a word, and Google has shuffled these menus several times, so if it is not where you expect, the search box at the top of the account will take you straight there.
You need a Google Ads account, and you need to have finished account setup including billing details. You do not need an active campaign, and you will not be charged for using the planner. Accounts created and then abandoned at the campaign creation step often cannot reach the tool at all, which is the single most common reason people say Keyword Planner is missing.
The two modes and what each is for
Discover new keywords
You give it seed terms, a website URL, or both. It returns a list of related keywords with volume, competition and bid estimates. This is the ideation mode, and it is where most SEO use happens.
Entering a URL is underrated. Point it at a competitor’s category page and Google returns the terms it associates with that page, which is a different and often better list than what you get from typing seed words you already thought of.
Get search volume and forecasts
You paste a list of keywords you already have and it returns volume history plus a forecast of clicks, impressions, cost and conversions at a given bid and budget. This is the planning mode, and it is genuinely the point of the tool. Google’s documentation notes that forecasts refresh daily using recent data and account for seasonality.
For SEO work the forecast panel is mostly noise, but the historical volume view is useful because it gives you twelve months of monthly figures rather than a single average.
Reading the results table without fooling yourself
| Column | What Google means by it | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Avg. monthly searches | A rounded twelve month average, shown as a range without spend | Relative sizing only. Never quote it as a precise figure. |
| Three month change | Volume movement over the last quarter | Good for spotting seasonality and fading trends. |
| YoY change | Movement against the same period last year | Better trend signal than the three month figure. |
| Competition | Low, Medium or High advertiser competition | Advertiser demand, not SEO difficulty. Do not confuse them. |
| Top of page bid (low range) | The lower end of what advertisers paid for top placement | A rough proxy for commercial value of the term. |
| Top of page bid (high range) | The upper end of the same measure | A high figure usually means the term converts to money. |
| Ad impression share | Your own share of available impressions for the term | Only meaningful if you are already advertising. |
Two of these deserve emphasis. Competition is not keyword difficulty. It describes how many advertisers bid on the term. A high competition keyword can be trivially easy to rank for organically, and a low competition keyword can have ten entrenched authority sites on page one. Anyone using this column as an SEO difficulty score is drawing the wrong conclusion.
Top of page bid is your best free intent signal. Advertisers do not pay eighteen dollars a click for terms that do not convert. When you are choosing between two keywords with similar volume, the one with the higher bid range almost always sits closer to a purchase decision.
The volume ranges problem, and what to do about it
The change that annoys people most is that Google shows average monthly searches as broad buckets rather than numbers, unless your account is spending. You get ranges like 100 to 1K, or 1K to 10K, or 10K to 100K. A range spanning an order of magnitude is close to useless for prioritization.
Google has never published the exact spend threshold that unlocks precise figures, and it appears to vary. What is consistent is that it requires an active campaign with genuine, continuing spend, not a single dollar.
Three workarounds are worth knowing.
Use the forecast to back into a number. Switch to Get search volume and forecasts, paste your keyword, set the match type to exact and push the bid and daily budget high enough that Google predicts near total impression share. The forecast impression count for a month approximates the search volume. It is an estimate of an estimate, but it beats a ten times range.
Use the monthly chart. Even without exact averages, clicking a keyword shows the twelve month trend line, which tells you about seasonality that an average conceals completely.
Use relative ordering. Within a single export, sort by volume. Even bucketed, the ordering is informative, and you are usually choosing between candidates rather than needing an absolute figure.
Settings that change your numbers a lot
Above the results table sit several controls, and getting them wrong is the fastest way to a bad plan.
Locations. The default is often your account country or a broad region. If you serve one metro area, set it. Volume for a city is a completely different number from volume for the United States.
Language. This filters the keyword ideas Google returns, not the searcher’s interface language in every case. Set it deliberately for multilingual markets.
Search networks. The choice between Google and “Google and search partners” changes the figures. Google alone is the cleaner baseline for SEO purposes.
Date range. Default is the trailing twelve months. Narrow it when you are researching something seasonal, and widen the comparison when you want to see whether a topic is growing or dying.
Refine keywords. The panel on the right groups suggestions by attributes such as brand, product type and color. Excluding brand terms here is often the single most useful filter, because branded searches inflate a list without representing addressable demand.
Exporting and working with the data
Use the download icon in the top right for CSV or Google Sheets. The export includes the underlying columns, including monthly volume for each of the last twelve months in separate fields, which is more granular than what the interface displays.
# Rough triage of a Keyword Planner export
# Keep rows with meaningful commercial intent, drop branded terms.
import csv
with open('Keyword Stats.csv', encoding='utf-16', newline='') as f:
for _ in range(2): # Google prefixes two metadata lines
next(f)
for row in csv.DictReader(f, delimiter='\t'):
term = row['Keyword']
bid = row.get('Top of page bid (high range)') or '0'
if 'yourbrand' in term.lower():
continue
if float(bid or 0) >= 2.0:
print(term, bid)Note the encoding. Google Ads exports have historically arrived as UTF-16 with tab separators and two header lines of metadata, which is why the file often looks like garbage when opened naively. Check your own export before assuming the format.
Troubleshooting
Keyword Planner is greyed out or missing. Account setup is incomplete. Finish billing details, and if the wizard insists on a campaign, switch to Expert Mode during creation.
You see only ranges and expected exact numbers. That is the spend gate, not a bug. Use the forecast workaround above, or accept ranges for relative sizing.
Volumes look wildly wrong for your niche. Check the Locations setting first. A default of a whole continent or a country you do not serve explains most surprises.
Your keyword returns no data at all. Very low volume terms are suppressed rather than reported as zero. That does not always mean nobody searches for it; it means the volume is below Google’s reporting floor, which for a specific commercial query can still be worth a page.
Two obviously different keywords show identical volume. They are being grouped as close variants. Treat them as one target and write one page.
Frequently asked questions
Is Keyword Planner free?
Yes. The tool costs nothing and there is no subscription. What it requires is a Google Ads account with completed setup, and the precise volume figures are gated behind having an account that spends. Access to the tool itself is free regardless.
Why does Google show ranges instead of exact search volume?
Keyword Planner is a bidding tool, and Google reserves the detailed figures for advertisers who are actually buying traffic. Accounts without meaningful ongoing spend see bucketed ranges such as 1K to 10K. Google has not published the exact spend threshold, and it appears to vary.
Does the Competition column tell me how hard a keyword is to rank for?
No. It measures how many advertisers are bidding on the keyword, which is a commercial signal, not an organic difficulty score. Plenty of high competition terms are easy to rank for organically, and plenty of low competition terms are locked up by strong sites.
How accurate is Keyword Planner volume data?
It is directionally useful and precisely unreliable. Figures are rounded, averaged over twelve months, grouped across close variants and reported in buckets for most accounts. Use it to compare candidates, not to forecast traffic, and validate anything important against Search Console impressions for terms you already rank for.
Is there a Google alternative for SEO keyword research?
Search Console is the strongest free option because it reports real impressions and clicks for your own site. Google Trends adds relative interest over time and regional comparison. Neither gives absolute volume for terms you do not rank for, which is the gap Keyword Planner partially fills.
What happened to the old AdWords Keyword Tool?
Google retired the standalone Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator years before the AdWords to Google Ads rename, merging both into Keyword Planner. Tutorials referencing the External Keyword Tool are describing something that has not existed for well over a decade.
The bottom line
Keyword Planner is a bid planning tool that the SEO world adopted because it was free and it came from Google. It is still worth using for exactly that reason, as long as you read the columns for what they are: ranges rather than counts, advertiser competition rather than ranking difficulty, and grouped variants rather than distinct queries.
Pair it with data you own. Search Console tells you what you already rank for, which is the only fully reliable volume signal you will ever get. Google’s official Keyword Planner documentation is worth a read when a setting behaves unexpectedly, and if you want to go deeper on the paid side, our roundup of the best Google Ads books covers the sources worth your time. For measuring what the traffic actually does once it lands, see our guides on setting up events in GA4 and measuring marketing ROI.
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