SEO experts save me from pulling my hair out!!

I'll give it a shot.

You're probably thinking of a metacrawler as something that goes around the Web, compiling and cataloging info from hundreds of thousands of Web sites. Nope, that's what Google and other search engines' spiders do.

The metacrawler is a bit lazier. Instead of doing all that work, it just uses data compiled by the other search engines. If you type in a keyword like "dog training" into a metacrawler search engine, it queries several other search engines for the term "dog training" and compiles the results into one package and gives you the results.

Hope that helps, at least a little.

So the meta crawler will go to google, yahoo and msn and input the KW "dog training"

so how does it collect the search volume - how does it know what the search volume is?

The metacrawler loves to give figures so it should explain how it got its figures

You're going to love this...

Here's how Wordtracker estimates their search volumes:

First they take the the number of searches for a keyword, then divide that by the total number of searches performed. So if "dog training" has been searched for 100,000 times and there were a total of 300 million searches performed on their database, then that number would be .000333. We'll call this X.

Then they take that number and multiply it times the estimated number of searches performed across all search engines. They get that number by taking the number of searches on a little search engine and extrapolating it. If Dogpile and Metacrawler represent 0.5% of the search engine market and there are 2 million searches done per day on those two engines, then they figure there are 400 million searches being performed on all search engines daily. We'll call this number Y.

Then they take X (0.000333) and multiply it by Y (400 million) and get 133,300 searches per day on "dog training" (approximately).

Those are not the real numbers of course, but I think you get the idea.

Jesus!

just when I thought it could not get any simpler. So in fact they are just guessing using a base seed number.

At least google are straight, they tell you as close as possible how many direct monthly searches are being done!

The crazy thing is I find these hot longtail kws in wordtracker that look so promising - come to google and no such searches exist.

So I guess ranking number one in google would be easy problem is if there's no demand for the KW its a waste of time.

Also I dont understand why people are using metacrawler and dogpile whats so great about these no one knows of search engines.

How can effective seo be done using such nonsense data. Im still bafled

A few questions I have been thinking about are as follows

• people do use other engines to search like ask.com so potentially there are searchers out there using different types of websites to find info. Not everyone is using google. Therefore google would not have 100% accuracy in forecasting demand for a KW. They will only have demand for Kws searched in their own engine.
• This means to reach your target customers you have to take a risk and optimize that KW hoping that people who are using other methods to search for info find you.
• Wordtracker have 300million KWS in their database. All the gurus say wordtracker is the cleanest database?
• Which leaves the question of yahoo and bing surely they get millions of searches monthly but how does one find out what searches are being done?

The best thing I can do is test - see what works!

It would be nice though just to have some simple clean system that was comparative.

Figure Google's market share is about 70-75%. So any info you get from them is probably going to be a very good estimate as to how many searches might be performed on the other 20-25%. If you optimize your site for a keyword that the Google numbers say is worthwhile, it will be good across the board. Don't bother trying to figure out what is going on at the other search engines; it's not worth it and it's probably about the same thing anyway on a smaller scale.

I was never a big fan of Wordtracker. I tried it not long after it first came out and wasn't too impressed considering the steep price. I prefer the free tools like Google's Adwords Keyword Tool, plus some paid apps like Market Samurai.

Yes truth be told I wish I had known before would not have joined up to wordtracker.

I sent them an email asking a simple question no response back! What a waste of money!

Guys best to stick to google - its free and you get it all

google adwords tool
google insight
google trends
google search based kw tool
google traffic estimator

all free

Im going to see if i can get a refund from wordtracker had it for 3 months not been able to use it for anything

I just sent them an email to request a refund for my remaining membership! 253 days left of membership watch this space!

Yes yes yes yes!!!!!!

I just got an email back from wordtracker they will give me a refund Im well chuffed!!

All I wanted was a tool to help me on my KW research and wordtracker seemed so great giving me 1000 longtail KWS - but big boy google was having none of it!

Thanks to Wordtracker for my refund! Credit where its due.

I can use that money to maybe join Bruteforce or something!!