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Phrase match 565,000 yet only 425 pages?

by wabbit
4 replies
Hello,

This is a newbie question that I'm sure been answered before, but I don't know what to use as a search term in this case, so go easy on me please...

So I use a "long tail keyword" phrase and Google says 565,000 competing pages, yet when I click through the results there are only 425 pages? Does this mean that the first figure 565,000 is completely inaccurate or what's going on? And if inaccurate, why is that?

Cheers,
wabbit
#425 #565 #match #pages #phrase
  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Ohms
    The 565,000 means there are that many competing WEBpages, as in pages of a website. It does not mean there are that many pages of Google results for your keyword.
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    • Profile picture of the author wabbit
      Thank you for your answer Matthew.

      Just so I understand it correctly: I've found another keyword that has 500,000 competing pages with "phrase match" and Google shows a total of 40 pages with results (when clicking through each results page), meaning 40 pages * 10 results per page = 400 websites that Googles shows results for. So then each listed website would have 500,000 / 400 = 1,250 pages for that exakt phrase match keyword? Seems unlikely, no?

      I'm probably still missing something somewhere...
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      • Profile picture of the author Matthew Ohms
        Dude, you are thinking waaaaaaay to hard. It is really quite simple.

        500,000 competing pages means there are 500,000 webpages out there on the internet that Google has indexed for this keyword. It has nothing to do with how many pages of search results Google is showing.

        They aren't showing all 500,000 of those results, which is why there isn't 50,000 pages of search results. I am willing to bet if you go to the very last page of the results, at the bottom you will find this: "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 40 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included".

        Also, Google search results show single webPAGES, not entire webSITES. More than one webpage of a single website can show up for a single search keyword.
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        • Profile picture of the author halfpoint
          The number is largely irrelevant. Google will only return a maximum of 1000 results per each search query, anyway.

          Regardless, your true competition is the 10 sites ranking on the first page. Forget about how many pages are returned and all of that nonsense and simply focus on how you can optimize your site better than the sites at the top.
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