How reliable is Google Keyword Tool

5 replies
Hey guys, just wanted to ask some keyword experts how accurate the Google Keyword Tool is as far as monthly search volume...

Is it close +-10% or is it completely out to lunch?

I'm comparing a very specific keyword and Google tells me there are 4,000 searches per month but another keyword tool is telling me 40.

That's a huge difference. What are your thoughts (its for natural search traffic) ?

Mike Hill
#google #keyword #reliable #tool
  • Profile picture of the author zerofill
    Originally Posted by Mike Hill View Post

    Hey guys, just wanted to ask some keyword experts how accurate the Google Keyword Tool is as far as monthly search volume...

    Is it close +-10% or is it completely out to lunch?

    I'm comparing a very specific keyword and Google tells me there are 4,000 searches per month but another keyword tool is telling me 40.

    That's a huge difference. What are your thoughts (its for natural search traffic) ?

    Mike Hill
    We use it constantly...along with the API as well...
    But the thing with Google is you have to take in account that everyone wants to target Google...everyone is doing keyword research with Google...
    So that bloats the numbers a lot I think.

    We often will do something like compare results with Google Versus WordTracker...which I guess isn't a really fair comparison but... probably 60% of the time they are close...For daily volume if you take an average of the Google by dividing by 30.

    For instance:
    80 65
    80 31
    97 83
    97 1169
    97 63
    97 78
    97 136
    97 73
    120 189
    120 223
    147 134
    147 134
    147 211
    180 328
    180 221
    180 213
    180 191
    220 136
    270 218
    270 446
    270 189
    330 2803
    603 688
    603 13
    1103 1556

    Numbers on the left are Google and ones on the right are wordtracker...
    Many are in the ballpark many aren't...

    But then again wordtracker free tool uses things like dogpile and metacrawler...so it isn't always a great comparison.

    I think it is accurate enough to give you your ideal keywords though....
    Because Jeremy Kelsall and I do it all the time using a tool I built awhile back.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Hill
      Thanks that's enough to make my mind up about getting the exact domain name which is still available

      I looked at the top search results and the #1 position through to the #10 position and they are horrible at SEO I'm more than sure they are in those positions by accident.

      Time to grab this one... I can be in the first position by tomorrow at most.

      Mike Hill




      Originally Posted by zerofill View Post

      We use it constantly...along with the API as well...
      But the thing with Google is you have to take in account that everyone wants to target Google...everyone is doing keyword research with Google...
      So that bloats the numbers a lot I think.

      We often will do something like compare results with Google Versus WordTracker...which I guess isn't a really fair comparison but... probably 60% of the time they are close...For daily volume if you take an average of the Google by dividing by 30.

      For instance:
      80 65
      80 31
      97 83
      97 1169
      97 63
      97 78
      97 136
      97 73
      120 189
      120 223
      147 134
      147 134
      147 211
      180 328
      180 221
      180 213
      180 191
      220 136
      270 218
      270 446
      270 189
      330 2803
      603 688
      603 13
      1103 1556

      Numbers on the left are Google and ones on the right are wordtracker...
      Many are in the ballpark many aren't...

      But then again wordtracker free tool uses things like dogpile and metacrawler...so it isn't always a great comparison.

      I think it is accurate enough to give you your ideal keywords though....
      Because Jeremy Kelsall and I do it all the time using a tool I built awhile back.
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  • Profile picture of the author zerofill
    Plus also depends on if you are doing a broad match or an exact match...because that can really change the numbers...
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  • Profile picture of the author mikecowles
    Hi,

    I've used Google's Keyword Tool and several others, but they definitely give different info. My suggestion is to look at the results from GKT as well as keyword spy (Keyword Research Tool & Keyword Tracking | Keywordspy.com) and Word Tracker (Keyword services for professional search engine optimization). Then run some ppc campaigns with those keywords to see the 'real' results.

    When you run your ppc campaigns, be sure to add the keywords as is, plus with "quotes" and [brackets]. This tells Google that you want broad match, phrase match and exact match. Each of these will give you different results and sometimes it can be significant.

    Here's the difference for the keywords 'gym shoes'...

    broad match: shows search for gym shoes in any order and with other words, like 'red shoes I wear to the gym' would show up.

    "phrase match": only seaches the keywords in that order, but will include other text before and after, like 'affordable gym shoes in Chicago' would show up.

    [exact match]: only searches for the exact words 'gym shoes'.

    If you'd like to save some time, you can use Keyword Secretary for free to create the different deliminators for you.

    Hope this helps!

    -Mike Cowles. <><
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