For those who read my rant on how unstable Keyword Scout is, here’s a heads-up for those struggling to make the keyword research/Amazon & Public Proxy-Scraping tool Keyword Scout to work. The program code still needs some polishing, but when it finally works it flies, so don’t lose hope if you are having a problem with it. Yes, I was frustrated when I wrote the last post, hence it being a rant. This is what I did to stop Keyword Scout Crashing.

A few words about Keyword Scout

To begin with, a few words to describe this program, its main purpose and why it already proves a worthy competitor for the title “Best Keyword Tool of The Year”. That is, as long as the team continues to develop and improve upon it.

Not surprisingly Keyword Scout targets keyword and niche research, which happens to be a pretty large niche in itself. This particular software program is blissfully void of bells and whistles graphics, the layout a bit dull, but thanks to the lack of graphics and animations slowing things down otherwise, the software runs blistering fast. Like the case is with other scraping tools, ScrapeBox for instance, proxies are not only recommended for using Keyword Scout, but also required.

But what if I don’t have my own proxies?

You don’t say! Fortunately for the both of us, Keyword Scout comes with its own fast and powerful Public Proxy scraping tool. I have ScrapeBox as well, and to be honest the proxy scraper in Keyword Scout makes ScrapeBox painfully slow in comparison. With the proxy scraper in Keyword Scout, you are done scraping, dupe-checking, testing and implementing usually between 230 and 300 fresh public proxies within 5 minutes or so. Using ScrapeBox: make that 30 minutes. No joke.. it is slow!

On to the issue: how to fix Keyword Scout Crashing

With that rant out of the way, this is not a product review and I need more experience with K.S. before writing one. My problem with it was that it simply wouldn’t work. First I got a .NET Framework error pop-up every time I launched the program, then the only tool that actually worked, was the proxy scraper. The keyword tools seemed to be fetching something, albeit no results shown in the main window. I struggled for a week to find a solution to this headache-inducing problem, and not even the owner could help with it.

Having re-formatted C:, re-installed Windows 7 Home Premium OEM 64-bit, downgraded the program installation, re-installed it and the .NET Framework files a couple of times but to no avail, I finally figured it out. My enthused d’oh-moment:

I ventured into my Windows Control Panel and changed the default system language from Norwegian to US English.

That’s how easy it was, at least for me! No more crashes, and Keyword Scout logged me in properly, for the first time showing information such as updates history, current version, and more. Shaking like a drug addict in rehab I decided to try an Amazon keyword search. What if … Lo and behold: 50 great Amazon product keywords rolled in, some of which were so nice, I had to immediately write it down and dig into it. My jaw literally dropped in awe as I watched one gold nugget after another popping up on my screen, this for the Amazon keyword scraper alone.

Next, I took the main keyword scraper tool for a ride, and although it definitely requires some initial thought and preparation (the Amazon scraper is basically click-and-go), the results can be pure gold. With no effort at all, Keyword Scout dug up precious, KW-stuffed EMD that are still available to register, with decent traffic and excellent CPC and competition.

To Buy or Not to Buy, is the Cake a Lie?

As much as I look forward with enthusiasm to unleash the power of Keyword Scout for my new Amazon and Adsense sites, I have grown a little weary and sometimes overzealous when it comes to paid as well as free KW/niche research software. More often than not it has a limited life span due to profit decline, business changing hands, or significant search engine updates which basically breaks the tool. If you have little money left, spend it elsewhere and teach yourself proper KW/niche research by hand. If you can afford it on the other hand, Keyword Scout seems to be a real gem of a KW/niche research tool, at least for now. Judging from my own experience with this product, I have mixed feelings about it, but I am willing to give it a second chance now that it works.

Unfortunately, Josh & Co decided to close the support forum for this product, otherwise I would have posted this solution in there. The forum is to be replaced with a Support Ticket system, which will hopefully provide adequate support for the customers. I also recommend a visit to the WSO thread for Keyword Scout in the Warrior Forum.

I hope this guide on how to fix Keyword Scout Crashing has helped you fix the problem on your computer. Thanks and enjoy.

Haavard