How to Accurately Count the Number of Google AdWords Ads

This is a typical Google search results page with 3 Google AdWords ads at the top and another 8 ads on the right. Every Google search results page has a maximum of 11 ads.

On a typical Google search page, there is no option to select the country. What you see is dependent on your current location in the world. If you’re searching from the USA, you should see USA ads. I did a search while I was in Singapore, using a Singapore ISP to connect to internet, hence, I see a list of .com.sg Google AdWords ads.

How to Display Country Specific Google Ads in Google

Google has a little known command to allow users to see country specific content on their search engine.

This is a typical search URL for “loans”:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=”loans”&aq=&aqi=g-c10&aql=&oq=”loans”

By adding a 2-letter country code to the URL, we are able to see the results and ads for a specific country even if we are not there.

Let’s say I want to see the results and ads of the UK for the keyword “loans”, I type the following URL into my browser:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=”loans”&aq=&aqi=g-c10&aql=&oq=”loans”&gl=gb

• gb is the country code for the UK. I guess it must refer to “Great Britain”.

This is what I see from Singapore for a Google search results page for the keyword “loans”.  I’m happy I don’t need to fly all the way to the UK to see this information. Neither do I need to find a UK proxy server to simulate searches from the UK.

Why Most Keyword Research Software Don’t Give You an Accurate Number of Google Ads

Most of the keyword research software in the market only allow you to select 1 country in the software settings. Usually, the default country is the USA. When you do a search and see a number of ads returned by these software, you only see the number of ads for the USA.

This is fine if you only intend to create Google AdWords ads for the USA market. What if you are trying to market to multiple countries? Yes, you could switch the country in your software settings and search again and total up the number of ads by yourself but that would still be very time consuming.

In other words, most keyword research software are not designed for getting data from multiple countries in an easy manner.

Why Would I Care About the Number of Google Ads?

For Google AdWords advertisers, the number of ads helps you to estimate the level of competition for your target keywords. The more advertisers, the higher the cost per click (CPC), which means it will cost more to create an ad for your target keywords. You may choose to pay the money or try to find other keywords with less competition.

For Google AdSense publishers, the number of ads helps you to estimate the profitability of display Google AdSense ads on your web site. The more advertisers, the higher the CPC, which means more money in your pocket from Google AdSense.

In general, if you see a lot of ads for a particular keyword, it proves that a lot of people are paying real money to advertise their products and services on Google. Pay attention to these niches because a lot of money can be made since a lot of money is being poured into them.

Counting the Number of Google Ads Manually

Now that you know how to display the Google ads for multiple countries, you can count the ads by totalling up the number of ads you see on the search pages. This is an extremely time consuming task because:

• You need to make sure there aren’t repeated ads, especially the ads at the top.
• You need to look through multiple search pages of multiple countries.

It is bearable if you only have a few keywords but if you’ve got hundreds or thousands of keywords to go through… I wouldn’t even try.

Counting the Number of Google Ads with the Maverick Keyword Researcher

This is how I count the number of Google Ads for my keywords.

Every country will display different ads and a different number of ads. The Maverick Keyword Researcher adds up the number of ads for me so that I don’t have to waste my time doing it manually. I wouldn’t do it any other way.