The Market Samurai Mega Thread

[DeanRichards]

Most of us have been experiencing problems of one sort or another with Market Samurai and there are far too many threads on this so I'm going to try to put everything we know in one place so we can all be on the same page and stop multiple posts on the same topic. if you have something helpful to add, please join in.

The first thing to keep in mind is that all of these problems are not coming from Market Samurai. Some are problems with the Air platform that MS is built on and the rest all come from Google.

Be aware that the guys at Market Samurai are aware of all of these problems, they are all things that have just recently come up and everything that can be done is, indeed, being worked on at this very minute.

So the problems break down to Air and Google and here's what we've got so far.

Crashes, Hangups, and Pretty Much Everything Else

If you're having any sort of issues other than the 101 result limit (see below) then the first thing you should do is:

Download Adobe AIR 3 Release Candidate for Desktops

It is important to note that this is a pre-release version and not simply the "latest" version of Air. You can only get it from the Adobe Labs site above.

If you have any other problems with Market Samurai including installation issues, or download problems or any problem not fixed by the Air update, then you must contact:

Market Samurai Support

Here at The Challenge, we all use and recommend Market Samurai, but that's as far as it goes. We're simply not qualified to offer support.

Please do not start threads asking for Market Samurai help. Everything we know is posted here.

If you have discovered your own fixes or have helpful tips. please post them here.

The 101 Results Issue

This problem is caused by Google throttling results. They make changes to their API without notice and since they are in total control of that, there is nothing we can do except adapt.

For me and most of us, we can still get 800 results if we go directly into our Adwords accounts via a browser and so there is a work-around that will let you use the superior analysis abilities of Market Samurai with your full 800 results.

A big tip of the hat to Challenger Scott Sharpe for posting these instructions in this thread.

*****************
I've been working around the 100 (and not 800) keywords issue by using the Google Keyword tool to generate keywords and then import them into Market Samauri.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this process here is how you can do this:

Goto the Google Keyword tool and log in.

Click "Advanced Options and Filters" -> For Location/Language use "all countries" and "English". You'll get up to 800 with this option. By selecting a country you will be returned with less.

Click the drop down menu labeled columns (right side) and uncheck all of the boxes so only the keywords are visible.

Click the download icone & save the keywords as a .csv file after you have searched your phrase.

Start a new project in MS & goto the Keyword Research. Click the "Import" button located below the box where the generated keywords would normally appear.

There's no need to click "Generate Keywords" since you already have them.

Go into Keyword Analysis. You'll have 800 keywords with no traffic data so this will take longer than usual.

Make sure the challenge filters are set and uncheck everything but SEOT & PBR. Click "Analyze keywords." (I uncheck SEOC temporally since they are not filtered yet & it more than likely adds time and wastes resources--unfiltered keywords.)

You'll be asked for a captcha or two if you have a lot of keywords.

Once this finishes check the SEOC box and click on Analyze Keywords again to get the competition data (this will be much faster).

Keyword Analysis will take longer but to me it's worth the extra time.

*************

So that's about it. If you have anything helpful to add, please do so, but please don't post about your particular problem. If you don't see a fix or a workwound here, we can't help you and you must go to:

Market Samurai Support

I'm sure I've probably missed some of the good suggestions already given so please feel free to repeat those helpful suggestions here.

I know how frustrating it is to have software problems. They seem like such a complete waste of time and they are. But frustration is simply part of being a marketer and you'll never survive if you can't move from feeling frustrated to finding effective ways to deal with whatever problem you're currently having. Don't worry, there is always a new problem around the corner... but that is the nature of games and marketing is a very old game indeed.