argument against wordtracker

Jeremy123 · 07-13-2009, 09:42 AM

the argument against wordtracker says that wordtracker gets its data
from the metacrawlers, and that no one searches the metacrawlers,

but where do the metcrawlers get its data from, the search engines

this is from wordtracker...

Where do Wordtracker's keywords come from?

We get our US data from metacrawlers, rather than the search engines themselves. The metacrawlers contain the results from the search engines.

To be fair we do make an assumption. We assume that people will search for the same things regardless of whether they use a search engine like Yahoo! (Yahoo!) or a metacrawler like Metacrawler. The argument can be raised that many new people who have just joined the internet wouldn't know a metacrawler if it jumped out at them. But then… it works both ways. There are many portals which use metacrawlers for searching the web (Product reviews and prices, software downloads, and tech news - CNET for example).

We believe that a user (especially a new user) would see a search box as a search box; they are not interested in the technology that provides them with their results. Also remember that a metacrawler uses the major search engines for its results!

We have found a great deal of similarity between the results from search engines and metacrawlers. Concrete examples can be found by comparing our top 100 lists to those of Altavista, Lycos, Searchterms.com, Searchwords.com and an analysis of 1 billion top Altavista searches from 1999.

The other great thing about metacrawler results is that we do not have to contend with the skew from people using software robots checking keyword positions. All in all, it works out pretty well.

Our UK keywords come from ISP data. Unfortunately we can't be more specific about where our data comes from due to contractual obligations.

Steve Diamond · 07-13-2009, 11:22 AM

Jeremy, I'm not sure of the point of your post, which mostly quotes from the Wordtracker site.

Are you agreeing with their argument? I'll counter by saying that there are many tools that use Google, that can drill as deep as Wordtracker, and that are far less expensive than a Wordtracker subscription.

That's my take anyway. Please clarify what you were intending to say.

Steve

Jeremy123 · 07-13-2009, 08:21 PM

sorry if it was not clear, people say wordtracker is not reliable because
they get there results from metacrawlers and people don't search at metacrawlers

but if the metacrawlers get there results from the search engines which is where people
do search isn't that the same thing

I was disagreeing with the wordtracker argument.

When drilling into Google for longtails how do you know how many searches
there are, they don't have enough data.

07-13-2009, 09:42 AM	#1
Jeremy123 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: New York Posts: 298 Thanks: 1 Thanked 27 Times in 20 Posts	argument against wordtracker the argument against wordtracker says that wordtracker gets its data from the metacrawlers, and that no one searches the metacrawlers, but where do the metcrawlers get its data from, the search engines this is from wordtracker... Where do Wordtracker's keywords come from? We get our US data from metacrawlers, rather than the search engines themselves. The metacrawlers contain the results from the search engines. To be fair we do make an assumption. We assume that people will search for the same things regardless of whether they use a search engine like Yahoo! (Yahoo!) or a metacrawler like Metacrawler. The argument can be raised that many new people who have just joined the internet wouldn't know a metacrawler if it jumped out at them. But then… it works both ways. There are many portals which use metacrawlers for searching the web (Product reviews and prices, software downloads, and tech news - CNET for example). We believe that a user (especially a new user) would see a search box as a search box; they are not interested in the technology that provides them with their results. Also remember that a metacrawler uses the major search engines for its results! We have found a great deal of similarity between the results from search engines and metacrawlers. Concrete examples can be found by comparing our top 100 lists to those of Altavista, Lycos, Searchterms.com, Searchwords.com and an analysis of 1 billion top Altavista searches from 1999. The other great thing about metacrawler results is that we do not have to contend with the skew from people using software robots checking keyword positions. All in all, it works out pretty well. Our UK keywords come from ISP data. Unfortunately we can't be more specific about where our data comes from due to contractual obligations.

07-13-2009, 11:22 AM	#2
Steve Diamond Senior Warrior Member War Room Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tucson, AZ, USA. Posts: 1,025 Thanks: 120 Thanked 158 Times in 115 Posts Social Networking Contact Info	Re: argument against wordtracker Jeremy, I'm not sure of the point of your post, which mostly quotes from the Wordtracker site. Are you agreeing with their argument? I'll counter by saying that there are many tools that use Google, that can drill as deep as Wordtracker, and that are far less expensive than a Wordtracker subscription. That's my take anyway. Please clarify what you were intending to say. Steve
	Executive I.T. consulting for small/medium business Website development \| PHP - MySQL - JavaScript expert programming Software requirements analysis \| Specification writing Project management \| Vendor relationship management

07-13-2009, 08:21 PM	#3
Jeremy123 HyperActive Warrior War Room Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: New York Posts: 298 Thanks: 1 Thanked 27 Times in 20 Posts	Re: argument against wordtracker sorry if it was not clear, people say wordtracker is not reliable because they get there results from metacrawlers and people don't search at metacrawlers but if the metacrawlers get there results from the search engines which is where people do search isn't that the same thing I was disagreeing with the wordtracker argument. When drilling into Google for longtails how do you know how many searches there are, they don't have enough data.