Google Search Suggestions vs. Keyword Tool

[zsolt]

Hello,

Maybe this question has already been asked in this forum but I can't find the Search function in the menu bar (I am pretty sure there used to be one)

Anyways, I've been doing some keyword hunting for my telescope blog. Nothing serious, I just type in some words into the Google Keyword Tool and look at all the other phrases it gives me back and see if there's anything useful there. This way, I have indentified some pretty neat phrases worth optimizing my posts for.

However, when I type the same top level words into the Google search engine (google.com) the dropdown list of suggested phrases are quite different from what I get in the keyword tool. Sometimes they barely overlap at all.

I am buffeled here. If both lists are based on search statistics and reflect actual search habits (which would only make sense) then how can they be so different? And which list should I trust?

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Zsolt

[zsolt]

Thanks guys. Do know how Google comes up with the suggestion list when you make a search? Where do those phrases come from? And since they are so easy to select (and people probably do select the listed suggestions), it would make sense to optimize some content for those terms?

Or maybe I'm wrong. I just don't know where Google took those suggestions from!

[jamesviago]

There are a few reasons for the difference.
The most likely is geography.
The geographic scope in the keywords tool is coarse.
In many other places Google uses very local scope.
I would assume the suggestions list is localised.
Plus the keyword tool uses association. So give it "car" and it'll offer "auto".
Whereas the suggestions list uses extension - that is Google is driving searchers to consider longer-tail keywords to try to narrow the search. So you type car and it offers "car sales" as a suggestion.