I am getting confused.

When I manually type into Google for example:
"seo amsterdam" = phrase match = 109.000
[seo amsterdam]= exact match = 822.000
seo amsterdam = broadth match = 822.000

How come that the phrase match results are lower than the exact match? And exact match is the same as broad match?

I never really gave this attention but now I check it, I have this all the time.

Hi Simpleseo,

Ok - you are pulling "competition volume" from the google.com search results... this makes sense.

However, it seems you are confusing how google search "operators" were designed to be used for searches (most likely due to mis-information / fallacy that exists on the internet, about their being a search operator that uses brackets as a [phrase match] search operator, for searches queries run on google's indexed pages ).

Firstly, let's remember the data set for Search Queries here, is all the pages on the internet, that are indexed at google.com
i.e. a Query run on Google's ALL indexed PAGES data, for information on the data sub-set which includes PAGES where the "Keyword Phrase" being searched appears / is included, on those pages.

For google.com Search Queries, lets look at what each "Search operator" actually means in terms of the results it returns...
a) "seo amsterdam" = Exact Phrase Match
b) seo amsterdam = Broad Match
c) [seo amsterdam] = Broad Match

Please Note: For searches done at google.com, the use of [...] square brackets, is to group a series of search commands together (to make them easier to read when input) and is actually "optional"...
i.e. in your example where no multiple groups of search query operators are being used, the use of brackets is redundant... the [keyword phrase] and keyword phrase, are thereby exactly the same search query (so the "competition volume" seen from both queries, will of course be the SAME!).

You might find this page which explains google search operators useful, as it covers discussion on search operators in more detail:-
http://www.ehow.com/how_5654575_do-adva ... sults.html

Ok - that should answer your question
========

However, since some readers of this thread, might also be confused, between how Google ADWORDS "Search volume" data "operators" (for the data set of search phrases people have performed on google), relates to Google PAGES data Search Query "Competition Volume" data search "operators" (for the data set of ALL pages indexed by Google) ... I think that at the same time as answering your question, it is a good idea to do a table for this...

Which ADWORDS Data "OPERATOR" best = which Google PAGES data Search query "OPERATOR"
a) [EXACT MATCH] = "Exact Match Phrase"
b) "PHRASE MATCH" = "Exact Match Phrase"
c) BROAD MATCH = Broad Match
d) BROAD MATCH +MODIFIER = [Broad Phrase AND "modifier"]

So the logic which might appear strange above, is that Google ADWORDS [EXACT MATCH] and Google ADWORDS "PHRASE MATCH", in the above table are both related to Google ONPAGE Search Query, using the "Exact Match Phrase" google search operator (i.e. the PAGE searches using the "exact match phrase" google operator).

Why does this make sense?
Remember Google ADWORDS [EXACT MATCH] means... how many people used ONLY an exact search term in that word order (without a "modifier" word) e.g. ONLY searched for "seo amsterdam" with the words in this exact word order... and Google ADWORDS "PHRASE MATCH" includes all modifiers used together with the search query term
e.g. "best seo amsterdam" or "seo amsterdam number one company" etc. etc., with the keyword phrase words included within this, in this exact word order.

Please note that in both of these Google Adwords data queries, the "order of the words" for the [EXACT MATCH] and "KEYWORD PHRASE" are 100% the same... therefore, both of these Google ADWORDS Data queries, refer to the "exact match phrase" appearing on PAGEs throughout the internet.

Extending this discussion onwards...
For KEI and similar correlation of data from these two sources, the reason that it is better to use [EXACT MATCH] Google Adwords "search volume" data (and not "PHRASE MATCH") to compare to Google Search of indexed PAGEs Query "Exact Match Phrase" Competition Volume, is that Google in search results, always tries to "best match" any search query a person makes... thereby, we are less likely to rank high in results, for ALL of the "modifier" or [PHRASE MATCH] keyword phrases.

i.e. pages which are "optimized" for [EXACT MATCH] keyword, will appear at the top of the Google on Pages search search results for any given "PHRASE MATCH" keywords... and therefore for SEO, generally speaking, our expected traffic (search volume) is logically closer to [EXACT MATCH] and our competition volume, more logically closer to "Exact Match Phrase".

I hope these comments help...

Cheers, Asiaplay

PS:
For rank-tracker please remember that when keyword phrases are input normally into rank-trackers keyword list (i.e. without use of quotes), then the resulting "competition volume" collected, is always Broad Match COMPETITION VOLUME data.

If one wants to collect the "Exact Match Phrase" "competition volume" data using rank-tracker, then they can use a work-around trick... which is to input the keyword into rank-tracker's keyword list using a new project, whereby quotes are used around that keyword phrase i.e. as the "keyword phrase" (and not as, keyword phrase) and then use rank-tracker to collect ONLY the "competition volume" data for that new project
(NOTE: do not collect google adwords "search volume" data as well, when using quotes for the "keyword phrase" in rank-tracker's keyword list, as this use of quotes around the keyword phrase obviously makes it a different search query, for google adwords search volume, than a keyword phrase without quotes would be
i.e for google adwords the use of quotes and rank-tracker KEI preferences set to collect EXACT Match for "search volume", one would essentially be collecting search volume data for the ["keyword phrase"] term, which is not the same as the [keyword phrase] term, which makes more sense).

So if I understand good:

Google search exact match = "seo amsterdam" (use for searching for amount of competing pages)

Google Adwords exact match = [seo ansterdam]

In this case I did it good all the time but I got confused after reading this page from [url]http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6100]Google explaining Adwords[/url] saying [] = exact match.


And if you want your keywords to be more targeted in Adwords you choose [] for exact match. I believe almost always you can lower your cpc by choosing more exact matches right?

CORRECT


In theory the more targeted "longtail" your adword keywords are, the lower the Cost Per Click - yes, right!
i.e. generally the more longtail targeted a keyword phrase is, the less competitive it is likely to be (as less people bid on it) and therefore the lower the CPC (and also the Conversion Rate, should be higher as well).

Definitely the lower the cost per conversion if using exact [] (assuming you are targeting the right keywords)...

Cheers - Asiaplay

Yes just make sure you make a long targeted keyword list yourself with a keyword combinator and choose exact match.
I haven't tried it yet myself so my question is; Is it a lot of work to match a long list of keywords to the right ad group and linking page?