What are all these features on google keyword tool mean?

That should be an easy question to answer, on the surface, it may seem like it is, but you have to understand that Google is a Business first and foremost.

They are not in the business of providing free data to anyone, they pay for servers, programmers, network administrators, (possibly over paid) all jokes aside.

You cannot depend on the data that you are given access to, as being "Fresh" "Accurate" or even Moderately consumer friendly.

Think of it this way, when you compare data filtering, to say a Gold mining operation, the vast majority of the Fill they "Mine" for the gold is worthless rock, only a small part of the over all "Data" is actually worth money.

What you get is the dirty end of the data, if your a big corporate spender, you get a different kind of service entirely. (you pay for it)

Now if your good at filtering and managing the "Dirty data" that they do give you and you compare it with other data sets available online, you can mine some good and valuable information, but taken by itself, I feel that the data is erroneous, faulty, and a waste of time.

So, as the old saying goes, read between the lines, that is where the real gold in keyword research actually is found.

The sooner you realize that Google is not your friend that they are in business to make money from everyone, the sooner you will be on your way to making real money online, many people make the mistake of thinking that Google is friendly to publishers, but that would be a big mistake.

Another old saying that fits well here is don't put all your websites in one search engine, err, or basket. Well you get the point...

How can I use google keyword tool to my advantage and use the data provided to glean some good info?

How do I filter all the dirty data that google keyword tool gives me?

How can I use google keyword tool for researching keywords?



thanks I am newbie

Just look at the data and apply common sense to what your seeing, they show you a window, that is a very narrow view, if you follow the same keywords over time, you can develop a better feel for what the data means, for example if you see a keyword like gifts one month it might show up as a heavily searched for term, but if your within 30 days on either side of Christmas, or valentines day, then you may see a larger than average volume of searches,

So you have to apply that knowledge to what your looking at, if your on the wrong side of a holiday, then the keyword gifts would not be a good choice to pursue.

When you apply a little common sense to the data you can find the gold that is often buried in with all the other data, the biggest challenge is knowing when the data is telling you something important and when you might not be seeing everything you want to see.

There is no magic bullet, its a game that you and Google is playing and they hold most of the cards, but if you work the data, and apply some research from "other sources you can learn to identify when a keyword is worth pursuing.

What are those other sources from which I can glean some data other than the google keywords tool?

One thing to keep in mind those Google keywords are most likely not accurate. I believe local would be within the country, and global is from everywhere.

I would limit what google reports as the results to maybe 20% of what they say.

So 20% of what google keyword tool reports is right and the rest 80% is wrong data?

Forget what other people are saying about GAKT not being accurate. There is no tool on earth that can give you 100% accurate information, but GAKT is the best we've got and it's the data source for most keyword research tools.

Global monthly searches are the monthly search volume (averaged over a year) for all countries.

Local monthly searches is the same, except based on the specific country you have selected.

The most important thing is to ensure you look at the "exact match" search figures and not the default broad match figures.

Using the "exact match" in GAKT will give you k/w figures with a high percentage accuracy. It remains one of the best k/w tools available.