as most of you know the overture suggestion tool has been down a lot. What is the deal? Is there a free alternitve?.. Is overture and yahoo taking away the suggest tool?

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

also like
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en &
https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox

Pulled these from SEW's What People Search For - Most Popular Keywords (http://searchenginewatch.com/facts/article.php/2156041) page:

dWoz Search Phrase Lists (http://www.dwoz.com/default.asp?Pr=122): Great directory of services like those above, for search engines large and small, across the web.

Overture Keyword Selector Tool: Formerly called the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool, this free service is primarily designed to help advertisers who wish to select terms to target with ads on the Overture network. But you can use it to see how popular particular terms are.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox): Similar to Overture's tool above, this is designed to help Google advertisers know what terms to target but can be used by anyone to gauge the popularity of terms.

Our SEW paid members (http://searchenginewatch.com/benefits/article.php) also have access to the Researching Keywords (http://searchenginewatch.com/_subscribers/more/article.php/2153331) page that annotates a variety of major tools. The two key resources likely to help you from that are:

Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com/): You pay for this, but lost of SEOs consider it money well spent.

KeywordDiscovery.com (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/) is a free database of terms discussed more in this (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=951) thread.

Thanks guys.

I still hope overture solves there lag issue

as most of you know the overture suggestion tool has been down a lot. What is the deal? Is there a free alternitve?.. Is overture and yahoo taking away the suggest tool?

I dont think they are taking it away, but I am with you on the frustration...jeez this has been over a week now. And it's not like we just use it for research...I've got actual potential clients for them that need estimates...

aaaaarg. maybe MSN's tool will be better :rolleyes:

Because we noticed that if we logged in through an account that it worked fine, we were guessing that our IP had worn out it's welcome for the anonymous public tool. We set up a proxy on an empoyees cable-modem connected PC at their home and it works fine. Wonder if this is just a coincidence, or if the service is deliberately degraded for certain types of users?

Because we noticed that if we logged in through an account that it worked fine, we were guessing that our IP had worn out it's welcome for the anonymous public tool. We set up a proxy on an empoyees cable-modem connected PC at their home and it works fine. Wonder if this is just a coincidence, or if the service is deliberately degraded for certain types of users?

I thought the same thing. However, it seems to be having problems from "within an account" now as well. I tried just now with three different accounts. I will try at home as well...

It may have been a changeover from November to December 2004 searches, it's always down and/or glitchy and slow around that time.

It may have been a changeover from November to December 2004 searches, it's always down and/or glitchy and slow around that time.

I think you are probably exactly right Marcia... it seems to be fine now. But this took a week! So three out of four weeks ain't bad I guess? :confused:

That's weird. On 5 attempts just now, the bookmarked http://inventory.overture.com/etc... timed out 4 times. One time it loaded, but then the search failed.

Still works OK from the proxy machine.

Works fine when logging in to https://secure.overture.com/etc.

Maybe I have been blacklisted due to heavy use of the public interface?

John if anyone would have been "blacklisted" as you say, it would have been us. I repeat my earlier contention that there is no such thing. perhaps the system has not come back online "world-wide," with the problems you are experiencing...I just tried again and it's still working without being logged-in.

Yeah that might be right - but all I can see it what works and what doesn't. I have lined up a few additional proxys just in case... probably not a bad idea to do it this way anyhow - for various reasons.

In Holland we have the same problem here.
Maybe it has to do with the Yahoo! searchmaketing advertisisng upgrades that are going on?

Anyway i think its stupid from Yahoo! to not anoounce anyting on there own blogs about this. are they sleeping? Was this in the hands of a few of the 2000 emplyess that are fired?

I'm glad that this thread got kicked up. I've been having nothing but trouble using the tool for several months now. It fails more often than it works. This is the suggestion tool, or "Keyword Selector Tool" as they're calling it now, that I'm talking about.

I'm wondering... are they in the process of abandoning the tool? It certainly doesn't seem like anyone is minding the store.

I should mention, in case anyone over there is reading, that in addition to a very slow page load, when it does load, the little "submit" button often never loads... and often I get an error message rather than any results when I click either the button or the space where I know the button should be.

Also, I haven't a clue why they switched to the %20 character appearing in the input box instead of a space when the results are returned... but that's an extra nuisance.

Hi Robert,
I also send a email to Yahoo whats going on: no result yet. i post it here when I get one.
In my Yahoo search marketing account the tool is not working also.
The integrated advertising keyword is working though. I think it has to do with the upgrading pocess Yahoo search marketing is in. Well i hope ist that. Anyway the links in yahoo own pages to the tool are not working so this is bad for the thrust in the brand Yahoo. do it and have the toll up and working or don't and do not mention nor link to the tool. Frustrating. :mad: