Maybe it's a bit too late at night but :-
Rank Tracker - I enter a keyword and URL, RT tells me for the KEI, The Competition and #Searches.

Q - the #Searches figure where is that information coming from - Google Adwords Tool or Google Search Based Keyword Tool or somewhere else ? Are these per month searches ? and if I have selected Google UK only are these from the Google UK search network only

I recently read this article - very interesting :-
http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/why-the-google-adwords-keyword-tool-shouldnt-be-used-for-seo-a-case-study.html

"every day in every way life gets a little bit harder"
me this morning and me again tonight

Yes, if you are using Google AdWords in Preferences -> KEI Settings -> # of searches then you will be getting data from that tool. And yes, although the numbers might be off you can still compare keywords to each other, relative analysis works fine. As for Google Sktool - we will try to add it soon, but it won't have data for many keywords, especially long-tail ones...

Hi , Can you please explain exactlywhat I need to do in order to get exact search engine results (not ADWORDS search data) , please see the article that I mentioned, I think your default settings are flawed for me, and have possibly wasted a lot of my time.

I have the same experience as the author of that article, eg - he uses Adwords data (unknowingly) to target his keywords, and then he finds that in fact it is totally incorrect, please clarify this situation

For example if I use RT to track keywords picture mounts from google uk it says
Competition 9360000 Searches 110000

If I use Google Search-based keyword tool for the same keyword I get a monthly search of 2800

Thats quite a difference in numbers re the number of searches.
I just got this back a mate of mine - who is juggling with the same problem re Adwords Search Data

"I think what they are really talking about is 'impressions' e.g.

you search for yellow banana on a content network,
someone has an adwords account with green banana being ppc'd
the network site thinks 'that's close enough'
so it show the ad anyway (it may not adhere to google's exact match)
so, the ad which is not exactly appropriate is shown
even if it is not clicked, it has made an impression
this impresion is counted (erroneously) as a search for yelow banana on the KW toolkit

I think that is what's going on, I think the real pros have got past the stage of trying to figure this out and spend their time more productively - either by going for more longtail, or by developing link strategies

In short - adwords is defintely a crock - I proved it with one of my site - ppc on page one, but getting a tenth of the supposed searches"

And just to prove it again :-
I picked a keyword according to Rank Tracker (google Adwords data)
Rank Tracker tells me that for the keyword "stretcher bar" it as 181000 competition and #searches is 8100 -

Where as Google Keyword Search Tool tells me in fact
that was only 280 searches on that term

http://www.google.com/sktool/#keywords? ... cher%20bar

1. Which tool is telling the truth?
2. If it is the Google Keyword Search Tool then maybe Link Assistant developers shoud use that as their datasource perhaps ?

I'd love to hear your thoughts

Apparently the Google Keyword Search Tool will cease to function in a week or so, so not much point using that =(

Hi Voodoo,

In regards to using rank-tracker...
a) Search Volume
To get adwords to match - under "number of searches" settings in preferences, when you choose "google" - choose "exact match"... this gives you [exact match search volume data].... cut and paste that data into a MS Excel sheet...

b) Competition
Also remember that you can not to pull exact match competition data at the same moment in ranktracker (as by using keyword phrase not using quotes - the competition data is always broad)
So if you want to get "exact match" competition data - you have to run a new project where the keyword is input into ranktracker kw list as "keyword phrase" (i.e. in quotes)... then only run collecting competition data (then cut and paste that into a MS Excel sheet.


In regards to the problem you have found with Google Adwords data...

As I understand, the google adwords figures (for exact) include natural organic traffic and adwords traffic... so using the data for organic ONLY (leads to some issues, sometimes i.e. you never know what % is organic verse paid traffic for the search volume etc.)

In regards to the fish pond problem in that thread...
If you look at the payout rate for the guys example per click - I suspect some guys have been targeting that keyword for adwords ...
i.e. my guess, is that it is an unusual case where traffic is 90% via PPC (and a small amount via natural searches)... namely adsense etc.
Either way, we all know that by design, Google Adwords data is not always accurate (your own keyword is suspect in that it shows LOCAL and WorldWide Volumes to be the same for that keyword!).

For rank-tracker - using data from sktools is not possible at the moment (as Linky has said) and apparently Google is about to delete the sktool altogether at the end of this month... so all you could do to test if adwords tool is way out for the numbers it gives out, is to use another "searches per month" tool...
e.g. wordtracker or another one offered in rank-tracker... or perhaps manually use MSN Adcenter data...

<-- basically this is not a rank-tracker problem (it is a google adwords data problem)... so the fix is use a "search volume" that you trust the data from more... I am not sure really there are too many are better as a general rule

You probably know this... point I am really making is I don't think your research is wasted (this is more an anonomly than what will happen for all keyword traffic estimates)...

Another test (apart from SKtool) can be to check google trends as well...
i.e. http://www.google.com/trends?q=picture+mounts%2C+picture+mount%2C+photo+mount%2C+photo+mounts&ctab=0&geo=all&date=2010&sort=0.

Perhaps MSN / Bing Adcenter data is
also worth using - some say that is "Organic" search ONLY data i.e. not adwords included (but rank-tracker cannot auto do that) - lol....
See this article on MSN Adcenter data - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/using-the-adcenter-excel-plugin-for-keyphrase-research ... for information on the MSN plugin I talked to you about
Note: it is ONLY organic results, unlike google tools which are organic + PPC (you need MS Excel 2007 version, to use the plugin shown in the SEOMoz post).

It is possible however without the MS Excel Plugin... to get the searches per month data and CTR% for each kw (only for English-UK, English-USA, English-Canada, English-Singapore, French-Canada or French-France)... and export this to an MS Excel sheet
i.e. That data is available without using MS Excel 2007 plugin...
NB: You can choose English-UK data, using the MS Adcenter website page (export that to MS Excel and compare to Google)...
Remember if MS / Bing has 5% share of SE market... and Google 95% share... then a 2650 per month result for Bing = Google 2650 x (.95/.05) = 50350 approximately (assuming google gets the same ratio of searches, as Bing does and if G has indeed 95% share)...
<-- SEOMoz uses a different formula - which is more sound mathmatically (as based on tests)... i.e. GoogleData = 81*(MS Adcenter Monthly Search)^0.8 e.g. Google = 81*2650^0.8= 89135.02 per month.... (note this for one term I checked - Google estimated it at around 135,000)...
So MS estimate is lower than Google Adwords... but still obviously not a useless kw
I suspect those kw you had a problem would show up as useless (low volume) using MS Word as a 2nd guide to search volume

Lastly, remember that kw research is NEVER 100% accurate - it is "relative" science... but correlating MS (alias Bing) keyword research (or other sources) to Google Adwords data can highlight those kw which have potentially suspect Google Adwords data...

Hope comments help - cheers, Andrew