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First Experience with SpyFu=BAD

by Christian Fox
14 replies
Used their Keyword 'smart search' feature....

Spent the entire evening creating and drooling over my newly formed list of thousands of keywords and compiled them into a nice spreadsheet with keyword/daily searches/CPC/KEI and title&url kw data.

Then it hits me that some of these are good, too good.

So I do some checking up and find the search daily search numbers are off.

I'm not talking like 8 inches to the left off, I am talking not on the same planet off.

Examples one was indicated at 10,033 daily and is actually 293
Another was indicated 8200 and is actually around 5

I verified them several ways... Any term with 10k plus searches would have a Google trend but nope. Word tracker and Google (and common sense) agree with the 293 also...

I reported this to them as a bug but WTH what good is this data?
ALL of them were off not just these I selected...

Has anyone had the same experience? Should I just ditch them and go for Keyword spy?

More expensive yes but garbage data is worth LESS than nothing to me.

They have not gotten back to me yet but what can they say that is going to make me confident?

Arg

Any opinions

I am wondering if it is somehow a 'broad' 'phrase' 'exact' issue but even still.... I'm looking into it coz I need to know.
#experience #spyfubad
  • Profile picture of the author Jason_V
    I think you should give semrush a try. SemRush.com I think you'll like it! They used to be free, but now they're paid. I got to use it for free as a beta because I was a member of their former free service.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
    I have tried their free trial. I was satisfied with that but I have heard great things about KWS as well. I also heard SEM Rush is more geared toward organic data and I am getting more into PPC and CPA.

    I suppose I could give it a shot I am growing impatient with spyfu. Been waiting for a 'live operator' for almost an hour now. I am sure 2AM on a Friday is one of their busiest times (sarcasm)

    The KW generation is great but their data (apparently) sucks
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    • Profile picture of the author Jason_V
      Originally Posted by Christian Fox View Post

      I have tried their free trial. I was satisfied with that but I have heard great things about KWS as well. I also heard SEM Rush is more geared toward organic data and I am getting more into PPC and CPA.

      I suppose I could give it a shot I am growing impatient with spyfu. Been waiting for a 'live operator' for almost an hour now. I am sure 2AM on a Friday is one of their busiest times (sarcasm)

      The KW generation is great but their data (apparently) sucks
      No, their current PPC data is probably the best you can find.
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      "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."
      -Andy Warhol
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      • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
        Originally Posted by Jason_V View Post

        No, their current PPC data is probably the best you can find.
        I was referring to Spyfu.

        How good is SEM rush at generating large KW lists? Can you only see others campaigns or can you extract from multiple campaigns or a central database of keywords?

        I'll prolly just check them out. Tomorrow, it's been a long day.
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        • Profile picture of the author Jason_V
          Depending how much you pay, will determine how many keywords you can get. The details are fuzzy. Everything you asked is on their site. Do check them out, like I said, I was sad to see them go from free to paid, but I understand why they did. Their monthly keyword searches seemed pretty accurate.

          Originally Posted by Christian Fox View Post

          I was referring to Spyfu.

          How good is SEM rush at generating large KW lists? Can you only see others campaigns or can you extract from multiple campaigns or a central database of keywords?

          I'll prolly just check them out. Tomorrow, it's been a long day.
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          "When you do something exactly wrong, you always turn up something."
          -Andy Warhol
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
    Oh yeah I remember their pricing structure... That would run me I am a KW junkie.

    Now that I have analyzed the data it appears their numbers could be accurate assuming phrase match and ALL searches, not just Google.

    If this is the case then I will stay with them as their interface is excellent.

    I need to double check my data. I found some that way off my any measure.

    If it is true I just struck gold....
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  • Profile picture of the author TomBond
    I've found SpyFu do be totally inaccurate when it come to competitor keywords. Run it over a couple of your domains and see if it delivers anything that resembles your keyword list.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sidra Condron
    Hi, Christian
    I'm sorry that you had such a frustrating experience on SpyFu. I read your post on the SpyFu forums. You might not have had a chance yet to see it, but there was also a reply there with explanations about where we got our numbers.

    You referenced some other numbers, but we were having a hard time determining where to find them. Can you help? Maybe there is something that we overlooked or another statistic that you're quoting. Any of us at SpyFu would be happy to take a further look if you wouldn't mind shedding some more light on that.



    Distinctly_digital-- As much as possible, we show where we get our data. We keep cache pages for every keyword to advertiser connection we make. Of course we welcome anyone to run their domains through to see how closely it resembles their keyword list; we just ask that you give us a chance to show you why we return the results that we do. (Cache pages are available in one click next to the keyword name on a keyword results page.)



    Thanks!
    Sidra Condron
    SpyFu
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    • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
      Originally Posted by Sidra Condron View Post

      Hi, Christian
      I'm sorry that you had such a frustrating experience on SpyFu. I read your post on the SpyFu forums. You might not have had a chance yet to see it, but there was also a reply there with explanations about where we got our numbers.

      You referenced some other numbers, but we were having a hard time determining where to find them. Can you help? Maybe there is something that we overlooked or another statistic that you're quoting. Any of us at SpyFu would be happy to take a further look if you wouldn't mind shedding some more light on that.



      Distinctly_digital-- As much as possible, we show where we get our data. We keep cache pages for every keyword to advertiser connection we make. Of course we welcome anyone to run their domains through to see how closely it resembles their keyword list; we just ask that you give us a chance to show you why we return the results that we do. (Cache pages are available in one click next to the keyword name on a keyword results page.)



      Thanks!
      Sidra Condron
      SpyFu
      I posted a reply on that forum answering those questions and asked a few more...

      As I said there the KW generation is great but the data on the hits is very cloudy and some of the numbers I got are just waaaaaaaay off no matter how you look at it /broad/phrase/exact...

      At this point I have to double check anything that looks good before I waste my time chasing a specific KW.
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      • Profile picture of the author davemiz
        used spyfu in the past, wasn't getting accurate info, and sure enough i heard (from very good sources) that spyfu doesn't have accurate data.
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        “Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.”
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  • Profile picture of the author patfl
    I had the same problem with Spyfu. I ended up building my own tool for this because how unreliable those services are. That tool is not for sale

    Patrice
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  • Profile picture of the author Derek S
    no keyword tool like spyfu or keyword spy will be even close to accurate but if you start using the tool enough you should be able to gauge what the results really are compared to what they state.

    I spend around 500 bucks a day on AdWords for just one of my sites. Spyfu says I spend $140 a day and keyword spy says I spend $14 LOL but if I know what i'm spending and compare it to what it says my competitors are doing, I can get a good idea of where they are REALLY at.

    Look at it this way...

    You now have a large list of keywords you can pump into adwords and get true data for within a few days.

    If even one new targeted keyword gets you 5 clicks a day with one sale you have improved your bottom line.

    I'm sure with thousands of targeted keywords you should be getting a pretty nice surge of traffic to your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author GIahGroup
    Soo many spy tools now and I have tried them all..

    spyfu
    gcdetective
    ppcbully

    but my favorite is Hexatrack, only -ve is they dont have a historical DB
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    • Profile picture of the author Sidra Condron
      Hi, Christian
      Yes, I saw your post on the SpyFu forums. Thanks for continuing the conversation with us. We appreciate the feedback and clarification.

      Sidra
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