Micro Niche Finder Or Google Adwords Keyword Tool?

MNF still uses the old GAKT data.

Any keyword tool is just an estimation to use as a guide. Only 2 ways to be certain on the traffic of a keyword:
1. get ranked for that keyword
2. create generic ppc ads (hopefully they don't get clicked) that show for spots 1-8 and see how many impressions you get for the keyword.

Of course both ways cost you time or money, but is the nature of the beast.

I started using GAKT exclusively after using MNF for a while. I found for the keywords I was researching that sometimes MNF didn't even have info on them. I was finding too that there was always a discrepancy (usually a big one) in the information from both search tools comparatively.

GAKT is now only showing search numbers for searches done at google.com. MNF might still be showing results from google.com and all their search partners (like AOL). So yeah, the numbers will differ. I expect MNF will be showing the same results as GAKT soon, if not already.

I think for our purposes if we are not Adwords advertisers, we really needed the old GAKT results (showing search numbers for Google and their search partners). I mean, most of us don't care if a visitor to our site did a Google search through AOL or at google.com, right? I don't. I just want to know how many total searches are done that use the Google results. Now the GAKT is no longer telling us that. It's only telling us the numbers of people who go to google.com and do a search. That kinda sucks for free traffic seekers and SEO'ers.

John

Not very useful data, is it? I have had the same issue since Google have scrapped their "old" Keyword Tool. The discrepancies between Google's search results and MNF are huge!

In fact I submitted a ticket to MNF yesterday asking about the reliability of MNF's search counts and got a "cookie cutter" outdated response telling me that MNF gets its data from (old) Google Keyword Tool External and not from the (beta) Google Adwords Keyword Tool, which is obviously no longer the case.

They also told me that the discrepancy is possibly because the geo settings (US, World, AU....) and Exact, Phrase or Broad search settings may be different on GAKT and MNF. That was also not the case as I made sure of course I was comparing "apples with apples".

I have since submitted another ticket and while I'm eagerly awaiting response, I think in reality it's just a matter of an upgrade that they are sure to do, hopefully some time soon. Until then, I don't think the MNF can be relied on for search count at all.

Incidentally, even though I understand that the reason for these big difference in search count results between the "old" Google Keyword Tool and the "new" one because the new results are showing searches done in Google only and do not include their search partners, some things still don't make sense. For example, I was getting an "exact" search count for a particular phrase of 31,300 in the "old" Google tool (as well as MNF) and 4,600 in the "new". Are that many searches conducted through Google's search partners? Really?

I think the conclusion is that as tshipp said, these search tools provide estimates only and while they are a useful guide, without further investigation (more work! and more money!) unfortunately we just don't have a clear picture.

Vlad.

Thanks a lot for the information everyone, the "niche" results seems to show correctly, so I guess I'll just need to keep GAKT handy so I can check with it when I find a decent keyword.

Thanks again!