Screenshots...Firt page Google 180K last page 15. Which to trust?

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  • SEO
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Okay I posted this thread previous and I guess I was murky in my question so I've brought pictures this time to clear the air.

when conducting my keyword research on a "keyword" I see that Google results results from the first page as something like 180,000 pages of competing sites but.....if you navigate all the way to the last page of search results it turns out that they is only about 15 pages of actual search volume....sooooo.....do i trust the first page of search results and say okay...180,000 is a twee to much competition or do i say..okay 15 pages of search results sign me up?? So confused on the issue...below are the screen shots I took for my example.

Thanks to any warriors that can help me defuse the question.

Imageshack - searchresults
#180k #google #page #screenshotsfirt #search #threadfirst #trust #update
  • Profile picture of the author Richard Tunnah
    Hi,
    The answer is pretty simple. There may be 180,000 competing sites but google only shows the first 1000 sites. However what you are really competing against are the sites on the first page as they get 98% of the traffic.
    Hope that helps.

    Rich
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  • Profile picture of the author evertd
    There are a few things to consider here. For almost any search, if you go to the last page of results, there are many less than Google indicates at first. But at the end of the list, do you notice the link that says: "repeat the search with the omitted results included"? If you click that there are typically tons of extra results, I believe these are the supplemental results.

    But as mentioned already, you are competing with the results on the first page, and NOT the ones you see when you search in quotes like you did in your screenshots. Your potential visitors in all likelyhood are not using quotes. So if you do the same seach without quotes there are like 35million results (and interestingly if you go to the end, the last result shown is like 670 some).

    Do the search without quotes and evaluate how many links the results on the first page have, and decide if you can compete against them. The other 35million does not really matter.
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