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I Knew Google Lies But Not This Bad

by zeke
26 replies
I cam across a niche that according to the google keyword tool has 2.6 million monthly exact searches which is over 86,000 searches per day for one keyword.

I started building a site and have finally made it to page one only to find out that my visitor numbers are pretty low.

So I started an adwords campaign to see the exact numbers.

I ran the campaign for about a week and have found out that the exact searches per day are more like 900 searches per day.

Why on earth would they exaggerate the numbers like that?

It seems like the google keyword tool is now a complete waste of time for me.
#bad #google #google lies #knew #lies
  • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
    Originally Posted by zeke View Post

    I cam across a niche that according to the google keyword tool has 2.6 million monthly exact searches which is over 86,000 searches per day for one keyword.

    I started building a site and have finally made it to page one only to find out that my visitor numbers are pretty low.

    So I started an adwords campaign to see the exact numbers.

    I ran the campaign for about a week and have found out that the exact searches per day are more like 900 searches per day.

    Why on earth would they exaggerate the numbers like that?

    It seems like the google keyword tool is now a complete waste of time for me.
    That's the thing...

    None of the keyword tools are reporting "accurate" numbers, they are all just guessing...what makes it even worse is that they are for the most part all guessing from the same pot of "seed data"...There isn't a keyword tool or other reference point out there that can tell you just how many visitors you would get by being in the first spot, or even how many searches a day/month a given keyword gets.

    The closest to getting an "accurate" assessment would to do what you did, and run a campaign via adwords which at the very least gives you some concrete data to go off of.
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  • Profile picture of the author rankontop
    It's all about money,

    cant always trust even the big guys...
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  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    Well that sucks! So what keyword tool are we to use then if we do not use adwords?
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    The only thing you can do is check the data that is available, and then test the market. You either build a site and see what happens, or you run an AdWords test. As Jeremy said, they all pull their data from the same $hit pot, and it all stinks the same. But it is the only guess that can be made until you do the test work.

    Sorry, but that is the way it is.
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    Tim Pears

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    • Profile picture of the author CJ.Online
      Haha,
      yeah, they're definitely just estimates. I was building a site around a keyword that supposedly got over a million searches a month... that term in reality barely got any and that site was a waste of my time.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimG
    That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

    Respectfully,
    Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      That is a very good idea. It would still not be very precise but it should give you a general idea of the popularity of keywords. One more thing to base your decisions on.
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    • Profile picture of the author zeke
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      That's great if there are articles that are ranking but in most niches I come across there are not.
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      • Profile picture of the author TimG
        Originally Posted by zeke View Post

        That's great if there are articles that are ranking but in most niches I come across there are not.
        maybe not on the first page but I generally check the first 100 results. if I don't see an article in the top 100 for the keyword prase then you can quickly create an article for EZA and submit it.

        Normally it will rank well after it has been published. Then you can check to see how many views you are article receives.

        It's not 100% reliable because other factors could prevent your article from obtaining page views (for example a poor article title) but it can be used as another indicator for the potential of a particular keyword phrase.

        Respectfully,
        Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Worner
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      Or that the marketer went on to mechanical turk and paid a bunch of people to view the article to spike up the popularity :p

      Chris
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
        Originally Posted by skyfox7 View Post

        Or that the marketer went on to mechanical turk and paid a bunch of people to view the article to spike up the popularity :p

        Chris
        Whoa...whoa...whoa....

        People would do that?

        That's just disturbing!

        lol?
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      • Profile picture of the author TimG
        Originally Posted by skyfox7 View Post

        Or that the marketer went on to mechanical turk and paid a bunch of people to view the article to spike up the popularity :p

        Chris
        That's always a potential problem and if I see articles with something like 40,000 page views and it was just recently submitted then I dismiss it.

        I prefer to see articles that are ranking well, have been recently submitted (say last 30-90 days) and have between 2000 to 5000 page views as it provides a bit more reliable data.

        In some cases when you reverse engineer stuff you have to know how to game the gamers (for lack of a better phrase).

        Respectfully,
        Tim
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    • Profile picture of the author FredJones
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      This is a great tip that I had thought of once upon a time and then had forgotten by now - thanks a lot for reminding. Really good one.
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    • Profile picture of the author mlord10
      Originally Posted by TimG View Post

      That's always been one of the reasons why I like checking the articles that rank for keyword phrases. If the article is receiving lots of page views then there is a good chance the keyword phrase receives lots of searches.

      Respectfully,
      Tim
      Tim,

      You revealed one of my secrets (which is really not a secret at all).

      Yes, I have used this method with many niches and it does work just as well, if not better than many keyword tools for mining accurate data.

      Of course this method is not 100% full proof, but if you see an article ranking high on Google for a certain keyword phrase or two, then you can do the math and see approximately how many views the article is getting on a monthly basis.
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  • Profile picture of the author Black Hat Cat
    Banned
    Originally Posted by zeke View Post

    I cam across a niche that according to the google keyword tool has 2.6 million monthly exact searches which is over 86,000 searches per day for one keyword.

    I started building a site and have finally made it to page one only to find out that my visitor numbers are pretty low.

    So I started an adwords campaign to see the exact numbers.

    I ran the campaign for about a week and have found out that the exact searches per day are more like 900 searches per day.

    Why on earth would they exaggerate the numbers like that?

    It seems like the google keyword tool is now a complete waste of time for me.
    If you can't do something with 900 searches a day, then I suppose it is a complete waste of time for you. I can build 6 figure businesses around those numbers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve Faber
      Originally Posted by Black Hat Cat View Post

      If you can't do something with 900 searches a day, then I suppose it is a complete waste of time for you. I can build 6 figure businesses around those numbers.
      I agree. It depends on the niche, but I have built mini-sites that make a few hundred dollars a month from keywords that only get 20 - 30 searches per day. It is all in targeting buying keywords and keywords that indicate a problem that you can provide a solution for. If you can solve people's problems, you don't need 1,000 searches per day in order to make money. You can do it with 5% of that.

      What was that 900 search per day keyword and niche, anyway?
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  • Profile picture of the author BartWilde
    Use [exact] command...
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  • Profile picture of the author Dave Owen
    You also have to remember that your actual clicks will be substantially lower than what you may predict with the tool. This is because adwords ads are not clicked on as much by web users as the top organic results.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    What position were you on page 1? The bottom half of results will see less than 3% CTR. 900UV @ 3% CTR = 30,000 searches per day - that is getting closer to the reported values.

    What were the impressions (and CTR) given by Google Webmaster Tools? If you are competiting against videos, shopping results, images etc the CTR will be lower.

    In your Adwords campaign (the best way to check), were you in the top bidders for every search?

    Back to the keyword data, were the results for your (site's) location or global? Is your site on page 1 where it actually gets searched?

    What about the trends? Is it a seasonal word? Could the word have been effected by the events in the last month? World Cup, US holidays etc.

    The data will never be 100% accurate because it is historical.
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  • Profile picture of the author lacraiger
    also keep in mind that search results numbers vary by season, popularity trends, and other factors. some of that data could be out of date.
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    • Profile picture of the author DannyUK
      I don't know about paid search because I never use it, but for natural search I find the various keyword tools to be surprisingly accurate provided the keyword research is done properly.

      Looking at the base number of searches for a keyword on GKWT is just the first part of the process and you have to sift those numbers carefully to get a proper picture, especially when using broad match data. Don't forget, broad match includes searches with the keywords in any order, or searches that may have crucial traffic driving keywords missing, and so on. Tools like Market Samurai can be used to drill down to the real money keywords and then the latest click tracking research can be used to apply traffic percentages based on your ranking position.

      I find this to be a good indicator, usually depressingly good because after you do the proper leg work most of those "golden" keywords turn out to be pretty worthless unless you can make it into the top 3 on the top page.
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  • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
    Originally Posted by zeke View Post

    It seems like the google keyword tool is now a complete waste of time for me.
    Why were you on the keyword band wagon to start with?

    When you pick a niche, how do you do it?

    Personally, I only pick niches that I have first hand experience with. That makes it pretty easy to post unique and quality content.

    I suggest you get to know the markets you want to get into, and ignore those over-hyped keyword tools.
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