The green bar indicator in the Google Keyword Tool is gone now. In a fresh update, the bar has given way to text label of either "High," "Medium," or "Low”, in the competition column of the results.

Earlier, the webmasters judged the competitiveness of a keyword with the “Greenness” of the bar, the more green in the bar, the more competitive the term. Here is the how the table looks now:

The level of competitiveness is now depicted with text, and visually it does look different, but the granularity as to how this ranking was assigned has been left unchanged by Google. Webmasters still have to download a report to know the exact number that lead up to the competitiveness being high low or medium. The downloaded report shows the metric of competition based on a 0.0 scale to 1.0 scale in digits. This allows for very specific reporting.

A rough estimate if made with the scales, then the metrics corresponding to them would be-

• Low: Competitiveness number under .33
• Medium: Between .33 and .66
• High: Over .67

What do you think of this update? Do leave your comments behind.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

The Green Bar Of The Google Keyword Tool Replaced With High, Medium And Low Indicators!

You know how choosing the right keyword will help you up on the search engine ladder. But finding a high traffic low competition keyword is not an easy task. Moreover, the effort is double, if you have to work on different keywords. But you can make a good search engine placement by making a single effort for multiple keywords and not just one keyword. Read on to know how.

The magic term that will let you do the task stated above is – 'keyword mashing'.

What Is Keyword Mashing?

Keyword mashing means that you will now target more than one keyword phrase in web content writing. Now, what does this mean? Well, lets understand the same with an example. If you have a healthy living website, and your keyword research has come up with the keyword- 'how to lose weight'. Now you start using it to optimise your site. However, you have another equally good keyword in hand, that too has great potential- this one may be- 'lose weight without dieting'.

With keyword mashing at your side, you don't have to choose between the two keywords, in fact, you can add both these phrases together into a single longer phrase. So what do we have in this case-
'how to lose weight quickly without dieting' – now this becomes your primary keyword phrase.

With time, you will build links and get traffic for the same, and then you will notice that from this long phrase, you have started ranking for shorter, more competitive phrase.

How Does Keyword Mashing Work?

Carrying on with the phrase- how to lose weight quickly without dieting. In this case, you may find yourself higher in placement for 'how to lose weight quickly' and eventually also start ranking for 'lose weight without dieting' or 'lose weight quickly' and so on.

So, it is understood that as soon as you will start ranking for an extra phrase, you will  we see more traffic for your website.

This technique will give you multiple results for the hard work done on a single keyword. Keyword mashing lets you see your traffic growing from the beginning as the site starts to rank for each search phrase.

Simple, isn't it? You will find that your keyword phrase not only has an exact-match domain, but the shorter phrases also stand a good chance of getting better search engine placements. This will ultimately result in higher traffic as a result of multiple search engine placements.

More importantly, the traffic you will be getting will be natural links. This will be a good thing in the eyes of Google and other search engines, as they do not prefer poor or irrelevant site's links.

You can now work on building links by breaking up the long phrase- 'how to lose weight quickly'- 'lose weight without dieting' etc. This diversity of link text makes the linking appear natural to the search engines. The end result- higher search engine placement and rankings for multiple keywords.

How Is It Different From Long tail?

Long tail SEO aims at taking lower-volume and higher-converting keywords and making them work together for a major impact. It works towards getting highly relevant traffic that converts.

Keyword mashing is different from long tail in the sense that – with detailed content like an article or a blog which is long enough, will incorporate enough links, and will lead automatically to long-tail traffic. However it is possible that each search phrase may not send heavy traffic individually. So, it is all like experimenting. You do not know which of the many links, will work better, or send more traffic. That is why many experts refer to long tail traffic as accidental.

Now with keyword mashing technique, you deliberately choose the high traffic keyword phrases. You know that they have the potential to drive huge traffic to the site. So, you stand to get ranked for both or all the keywords phrases that are in your chosen keyword phrase.

For Whom Can Keyword Mashing Work?

Well, it will be extremely useful, if you are just starting to work for site, however, on an existing site too, you can use this technique. All you have to do here is target a long keyword phrase, and then a shorter phrase. With keyword mashing, you are aiming to work on two or more reasonably high-traffic keyword phrases. These phrases must have the potential to create a significant increase in traffic.

To Conclude: This technique will lead to rapid betterment in search engine placement and organic traffic, provided you work on the mashed phrase well enough.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

SEO Tips- Keyword Mashing Gets You Higher Search Engine Placement!

Wordstream announced their new Keyword Research Suite . The company assures 'More Keywords, Exclusive Data, Actionable Results' with the new toolset for SEO and PPC which consolidates tools that they released months ago. You can find the previous tools including the Keyword Finder, Keyword Grouper, Negative Keyword Tool, and the Niche Finder all in the new suite.

In the new Keyword Research Suite, instead of the Frequency bar, you can see the actual volumes. It also has an improved interface design and the grouped tools are comparatively easier to use together. With the new suite, the company offers the following:

• The largest and most diversified keyword research database with over 1 trillion search queries.
• Most accurate keyword research data.
• Efficient and user-friendly set of tools on the same interface.

For those seeking competitive edge, Wordstream says that the Keyword Research Suite will give “you exclusive, virtually unlimited access to keywords that are only available to customers.” to ensure that you get an unshared and unique data. The suite also comes in two editions – the Standard and the Extreme Long-Tail Editions. The latter will provide “approximately 25% more highly targeted long-tail keyword results.” This, the company says, will be helpful for affiliate marketers who play on highly competitive platforms.

You can start using the Keyword Research Suite for $329 a year which gives you unlimited usage of the tools. The Standard Edition of the Keyword Research Suite includes the Keyword Suggestion Tool, Keyword Niche Finder, and Keyword Grouper. The Negative Keyword Tool can be added for $99 annually in the PPC Upgrade while SEO Content Creation Plug-in for Firefox is available in the SEO Upgrade for $99 per year. The Extreme Long-Tail Keyword Edition is available for $599 a year.

You can try the Keyword Research Suite for free or to get more information you can read the suite's FAQ page.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Wordstream's New Keyword Research Suite!

Google has added a few new features to the Keyword Tool that was released back in September 2009. This news was announced on the Google AdWords Blog. The said new features were added as a response to the feedback from the Google AdWords community. The feedback was that the users wanted more keywords that are better targeted to their account and searches. Also, features like better filters, the ability to star keywords, and copy them as text; are added.

With the new updates, the users can filter and refine the keyword list in three new ways:

• Choose specific terms to include or exclude from your keyword list.
• Use the ‘More like these’ button to search for terms that are similar to the specific keyword ideas you've selected from the table.
• Get only results that include the exact words or phrases (and their close synonyms) you’ve typed in the search box.

The feature that allow users to star keywords gives the ability to review the starred keywords in the “Stars” panel, on the left side of the tool later when they are done searching for keywords. This means the users' search for new keywords is not disrupted as they can go on marking the ones they think are important (and the tool remembers them for them) while they are still searching for more. It works like a bookmark for keywords.
 
The selected keywords can also be viewed as texts (text form) with the 'view as text' button. This will let the user to easily edit, copy and paste them in a spreadsheet or AdWords Editor.

Google also invites more feedback, by providing a spreadsheet, from the users and promises to continue improvising the tool in time. Keyword Tool users and particularly the ones who gave the feedback must be glad without a doubt, now that there is a friendlier keyword search and better results for them.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google Adds New Features to The Keyword Tool

Search marketing software provider WordStream has just released a new suite of Quality Score management tools for AdWords advertisers. These tools, which are now incorporated into the company's flagship PPC product, are designed to help you boost Quality Scores while lowering overall PPC costs. These tools should make it much easier for AdWords users to develop more cost-efficient and effective campaigns whatever their experience level.

AdWords Quality Score is a "grade" assigned by Google, based on demonstrated relevancy and click-through rates, that has a big impact on how successful your campaigns are. WordStream's new Quality Score tools help marketers strengthen their campaign structures according to proven best practices that raise both CTR and Quality Score, which equates to:

• More exposure in the search results for lower costs
• More traffic, better qualified leads, and higher sales

The new Quality Score tools have been added to WordStream's existing keyword management technology, along with tighter AdWords integration.

The new features include:

• AdWords Campaign Organization Tools – These grouping tools are useful for quickly creating tightly related ad groups and strategically organized campaign structures.

• Negative Keyword Tools – WordStream already had some great tools to help identify and set negative keywords, but these are now easier to use and have been improved to further reduce irrelevant impressions and wasteful ad spend.

• Long-Tail Keyword Expansion Tools – Again, keywords are WordStream's specialty. The new keyword expansion tools provide thousands of highly targeted long-tail keyword suggestions tailored to your product or service niche.

If you want to learn more, you can sign up to try WordStream's new Quality Score tools free.
 

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

WordStream Releases Quality Score Management Software

After announcing the Updated Keyword tool to be in the final stages of the beta phase last month, Google has now fully launched it

The Updated Keyword tool has the best features of the previous two keyword tools, i.e., the Keyword Tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool. Both the previous versions has been removed from AdWords and what now remains on AdWords is solely the Updated Keyword Tool.

Core Benefits of the Updated Keyword Tool

• Better Search Options: The keyword tool users can now search with any combination of keyword, website/URL, and category and get a single set of results.
• Easy Keyword Refinement: It gives the option of filtering results by word or keyword match types.
•  Negative Keywords: It has made it easy to select the negative keywords right from the keyword list.
• Advanced Options: It gives the option of viewing statistics for mobile search. Further, it helps to use the data filters based on local searches, search and ad share.

In addition, Google has made some changes to Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. The statistics in these columns, would now be based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, it included traffic from other search partners also. This change has been made, based on the feedback from advertisers.

The new tool can be accessed without signing in, though Google recommends to use it, while signed in on AdWords.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google's Updated Keyword Tool Comes Out of Beta Phase

Google Scribe is the latest Google Labs project, that offers keyword suggestions in an open text box, as the user types. It is a text entry box for auto word completion suggestions. It uses the information given by the user to complete a statement or phrase.

"Google Scribe provides text completion service. Using information from what you have already typed in a document, Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions. In addition to saving keystrokes, Google Scribe's suggestions indicate correct or popular phrases to use," explained Google.

How to use Google Scribe:

• The user can select a language from the language menu, given on the toolbar just above the text area.
• The user is supposed to just to type and when Google Scribe suggests a word or phrase, just by pressing on the Enter button or using a numeric shortcut, the suggestion can be selected.
• Google Scribe comes with a default setting that shows suggestions as the user types. This option can be altered to "On demand" by simply selecting "on Tab" option available on the toolbar. Using a keyword shortcut, the user can also switch between "Always" and "On demand."

Google Scribe Bookmarklet

The Google Scribe toolbar allows users to use them anywhere and on any page, using the Google Scribe Bookmarklet. All that is required is to drag the Google Scribe Bookmarklet (below the text box), from the Google Scribe home page to Bookmarks toolbar. In order to use Google Scribe on a web page, the user simply has to click on the Google Scribe Bookmarklet. This enables the Google Scribe on the active text field of the Webpage.

The best part about this tool is that a user is not required to use Google's editor anymore. The Google Scribe Marklet can be added to a browser and can be used on Blogger, Google Docs, Gmail or any other web page, that might have text fields.

Right now, Google Scribe works only with but Google is likely to add many other languages in the coming months. This tool is will certainly benefit SEOs in a big way, because it helps to write better content and helps to expand keyword list.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google's Launches new keyword Suggestion Tool "Google Scribe"

A new negative keyword kit has been launched for free by WordStream. It is basically proposed for the marketers to locate and delete the absurd impressions and clicks. Besides this, it is expected to soar up the ROI by increasing click-through- rate and quality score.

How…? Well this tool would provide the users with suggestions of keywords, which they could mark as negative or relevant. By doing this, they would be saving their time, their money and obviously, the ROI would increase by removing the deadweight.

Well look at the above picture, the word reputation has been written as the keyword. On the left side

How it Works

You can see a box that has been generated by the negative keyword tool. Just right to this, you can see a box with Relevant written on the top. From here you will select the word if it is relevant or not and you can even refine the selection of your choice by checking whether the negative word match will be 'broad', 'phrase' or 'exact'.

Larry Kim, WordStream's Founder and VP of Product Development says, "The Free Negative Keyword Tool saves PPC advertisers the headache of going the long, tedious and expensive traditional route of waiting for your ad campaigns to mature and accrue query data, then sifting through search query reports to uncover negative keywords."

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Wordstream launches its free negative keyword Tool!

Wordstream, previously known for its keyword management tool for PPC marketers, has launched two new free tools, the Free Keyword Niche Finder and the Free Keyword Grouper.

The Free Keyword Niche Finder   provides structured keyword suggestions by breaking the provided base word into "keyword niches". These ‘‘keyword niches’’ are the groups of closely related keywords which can be equally effective in both paid and organic search marketing strategies. This feature automatically recognizes the semantic importance of a particular keyword and fixes it in a group of keywords closely related to it.

The Free Keyword Grouper is a feature in which a list of keywords or analytic data is clubbed into tightly related categories. Its purpose is to provide ways to use a particular word in more relevant PPC ad groups and targeted SEO Web copy. For instance, if you will enter a list of keywords, then you will find the best possible way to use them in PPC campaign to achieve more profitable results.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Two Free Must-have Keyword Research Tools From Wordstream!

A recent Seroundtable blog post is talking about the new Beta Google keyword tool, which is more advanced than the current one and will act as its replacement.

As the mobile searches are gaining momentum these days, the new beta keyword tool from Google will be of great help to optimize searches on mobile phones. The good thing is that advertisers are having tools that can easily distinguish between mobile searches and desktop searches. In addition, they have the keyword data to determine the volume of such searches. Keyword data is considered as a successful mobile search strategy.

It is said that this new beta keyword tool will be really a big thing for all mobile advertisers. It will strengthen their business by revolutionizing online advertising.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google's New Keyword Tool- A Great Strategy For Mobile Advertisers

WordStream has launched a free keyword research tool that is meant to mange keywords to help in your search marketing efforts. This is to provide quality content for the broad search marketing audiences.

This free research tool will help marketers better manage their time,achieve higher Quality Score results for PPC and better search engine rankings for SEO, which results in more traffic. The tool does not give the exact number of searches, but ranks high just similar to Google's tool. Unlike Google's tool, it allows you to get all the keywords emailed to you.

An email from the Company states "WordStream offers a database comparable to paid keyword tools, but we always return your full list of keyword suggestions–not just the most popular keywords–completely free,"

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

WordStream Finally Launches Free Keyword Research Tool!

One of the recent posts by Site Visibility informed that Google has updated their keyword suggestion tool. In fact, even we also noticed the same thing. The update tool will help you target local keywords during research.

Here's a screencapture of the Google Adword keyword Tool:

This tool will show both local search volume and global search volume. Under the local column you'll find results specific to your targeted country, language and selection from the Match Type drop-down menu. Whereas the global column will include traffic of all countries, languages and selection from the Match Type drop-down menu.

This new feature will surely help in building and focusing keyword research to a specific country. However, it is also found that the local aspect of the tool is not as local as it could be, but it is too early to make any firm conclusions.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google Updates Keyword Suggestion Tool

We all know that Wikipedia offers a huge list of information, which is quite helpful during topic and keyword research. The three most factors that contribute to this fact are user-generated, well-moderated and heavily interlinked.

According to one of the recent blog post at SEJ following are some of the Wikipedia visualization tools that can help in researching relevant keywords and topics.

• Wikipedia-roll – It scans through different Wikipedia articles by concepts and items. For example, if you type in “Search Engine Optimization” in this tool you'll get:
• Key elements;
• Histories;
• Webmasters with search engines;
• As a marketing strategy;
• White hat versus black hat;
• International markets;
• See also;
• Legal precedents;
• References.

• VisWiki – This tool will help you in connecting with Wikipedia articles through interactive maps. It will help you view all the related topics and terms. To understand this tool better have a look at the image given below.

• EyePlorer – It visualizes knowledge graphs derived from Wikipedia content. This graph consists of eyespots, which denotes all the connected topics. All the eyespots are clustered together for better orientation.

• WikiRank- This tool is a bit new from the above mentioned tools as it visualizes page/term popularity on Wikipedia. Besides, determining the popularity of the topics the tool also allow you to compare popularity of many topics.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Wikipedia Visualization Tools for Keyword and Topic Research

All those who grieved the retirement of overture, can find some consolation in new section by Yahoo! Search Marketing Help Center now provides industry-specific keywords that could be related to your business! At the same time, it offers Industry-specific market research articles to help you get a deeper insight on a particular search.

"Industry-specific keywords with considerable search volume but typically fewer competing advertisers. Adding these keywords to your campaigns may help increase your traffic volume and improve overall campaign performance," stated Jeff Hecox of Yahoo! on the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog.

The reports and keywords described above are available for:

• Apparel,
• Automotive,
• Education,
• Financial Services,
• Healthcare,
• Home Improvement,
• Legal Services,
• Travel and Wireless Services.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Yahoo! Finally Offers Keywords Suggestion Tool!

SEMPO Institute by Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) has come with the launch of their new course to help people improve their skills in keywords and copywriting. The course is meant for both beginners as well as professionals to enhance their accomplishments and adroitness in a competent manner.
“Supported by SEMPO , SEMPO Institute has been able to tap into the knowledge and experience of SEMPO’s members and sponsors to deliver courses which have developed best practices and standards. Our course authors consist of more than 35 industry leaders. Additional experts have peer-reviewed the courses to ensure that all the information is accurate and truly is a best practice.” – SEMPO Institute

The Institute is going great guns as it was in the month of October 2008, when SEMPO Institute managed to reach 1,000th Student Milestone. According to a press release, the Institute has managed to achieve major milestone in less than two years of operation.

"SEMPO Institute courses are for any company employee who needs to know enough about how search engine marketing works in order to most effectively sell their own product. It's the sales people in the trenches who are now enrolling to add online marketing savvy to their knowledge," says Katie Donovan, SEMPO Institute Business Development Manager. "Search marketing now touches every aspect of sales and marketing so it really does have to be understood beyond the SEM practitioners," says Donovan.

This new course will surely help all those professionals who are interested in SEM, and want to gain proficient knowledge on keywords as well as copywriting!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

SEMPO Launches Course In Keywords and Copywriting!

Keyword Discovery has added “Question Phrases” to its list of searchable database. With the addition of this feature, users can now enter a keyword and get a list of related questions that have been asked instead of getting the list of related keywords. The features is really alluring and easy way to get new content ideas as well.

Snapshot of Question Phrases:

Example of the list of questions related with the keyword 'acne.':

The tool is really important, especially for those who want to go for keyword based search results with the motto of generating new content ideas.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Keyword Discovery adds Question Phrases!

Google has launched a new keyword tool, namely the Search Based Keyword Tool. The tool comes up with keywords and landing pages that are extremely relevant to your website. What sets apart the Skool (Search Based Keyword Tool) from other Google tools is the fact that it gives you the keywords that you are presently missing out on in terms of search queries for your website's product or content.

The highlight of the tool is that it gives an advertiser keywords that he is presently not advertising for. For eg., a site selling electronic goods can use this tool to get hold of a particular brand that it is currently advertising for. It can also be used to have a thorough competitive analysis. The keywords are also organized by category, each of which has further sub-categories. The differentiating point between Search-based Keyword Tool and the keyword tool in AdWords is, the former identifies keywords that are presently not being used in your AdWords account and also provides a more detailed data for each keyword. This data includes category information, suggested bid which will most likely place the advertisement in the top three spots and the ad/search share.

The above screen appears on pressing the 'find keywords' button. This shows you the different keywords that are relevant to your site and you might want. It also shows an Ad/Search Share column, which tells an advertiser what percentage of time you are showing up in search ad spots and organic spots. An extremely valuable piece of information to say the least. However, if you are not logged on your AdWord account or are not the owner of the website then the results will simply show all relevant keywords of the website given by you, including the ones the website might already be advertising for. (This for competitive issues). Also, it will only show 100 results in case you are not the owner of the website. On clicking the magnifying glass next to each keyword you can have a look at insights for that keyword searches, as has been shown below.

One can also have a look at the keywords in the different categories. Presently this Google tool is up for use to everyone and it should provide all advertisers a good peek at what keywords, they should dig for. Ideally, Google would want it to result in an increase in ad spend and get Google more revenue.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

The Search Based Keyword Tool from Google!

Wordtracker has announced the launch of “Keyword Questions”, that allows the webmasters as well as users from the SEO world to find certain questions that are frequently asked by the visitors in the search engines. With the help of this tool, webmasters would be able to get answers to all the FAQs and can get interesting web copies to get plenty of traffic on their websites.

According to Ken McGaffin, Chief Marketing Officer of Wordtracker, “People have a ton of questions about all sorts of things and people will go straight to a search engine to find the answers. Just enter a keyword and we’ll give you up to 100 questions that people have asked."

How does the tool work:

The keywords are paired up with one of the six words that are useful in starting a question. These words are: Who, what, where, when, why and how. Then a match is conducted from Wordtracker's database.

Let us have a look at the a very interesting example: If some one who has a coffee website, types a keyword “coffee” and jot down questions like “why cold water is used in brewing coffee,” in the search engine, then the particular question is tracked!

In a press release, McGaffin said, “This is a fun tool that is a great source of inspiration for web content writers. You need never be short of creative ideas again.”

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Wordtracker Launches “Keyword Questions”

Recently, I had informed our readers about the new Search Volume Numbers, that Google had incorporated in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Now, what I came to realize from this new Google move was that, by displaying approximate search counts or search volume numbers, whichever way you want to see it, Google has effectively rendered the paid keyword tools such as 'Keyword Discovery' and 'WordTracker' almost useless.

I did a quick comparison for a set of keywords we are working on for a client. You can see the stark difference in numbers of search reports by both Google and WordTracker below

Google AdWords Keyword Tool with ' Search Volume Numbers' indicator:

Google has been in the process of coming up with launches and updates to its services that have been designed to deliver the relevance and importance of keywords. I had also put up a post in October last year, providing our users with valuable information about the 10 Best SEO Keyword Selector Tools. Similarly, Google had issued an update for Google Trends, that further helped the advertisers by allowing them to easily export Trends data to a .csv file, thus providing them with a broader perspective of their website's performance.

Google Trends:

While explaining the relevance of Search Volume Numbers, Google stated that, “This column shows fluctuations in Google search volume for each keyword over a recent twelve-month period, specific to your targeted country and language. Each bar in the graph is relative to the keyword's overall performance for the 12-month period. This column shows the month that each keyword received the highest Google search volume within a recent 12-month period, specific to your targeted country and language.”

WordTracker:

Now as we all know, WordTracker is one of the most widely used keyword research tool. At PageTraffic, we have been using this tool for past seven years. According to WordTracker, “Wordtracker periodically compiles a database of over 330 million search terms which is updated on a weekly basis. All search terms are collected from the major metacrawlers – Dogpile and Metacrawler.” Even Keyword Discovery is a well renowned keyword research tool. According to Keyword Discovery, “Keyword Discovery collects search term data from over 200 search engines world wide. As a result we have the largest keyword database that contains over 36 billion searches.”

Now, with fancy wordings and intelligent distribution of information, they have managed to make it clear to their customers that, the companies' data isn't pouring in from Google. However, the question that follows with the above statement is that, “Why to rely on the data of third-party Keyword Research Tools, when Google is providing its own keyword statistics?” The answer to this question is a speculative one, where users would decide for themselves, whether they would like to continue with their paid subscriptions or would they opt for the Google statistical data, provided in the form of Search Volume Numbers.

According to WordTracker:

What does this count mean at WordTracker?

This shows the number of times a particular keyword has appeared in our database. E.g. Our database currently holds 290,342,323 words. A count of 147 tells us that this particular word has appeared 147 times in (this is over 110 days).
Our keywords are taken from major metacrawlers (a service that queries all the main search engines simultaneously). Our main sources are Metacrawler and Dogpile, the two largest Metacrawlers on the net. Metacrawlers have the major advantage of matching the sear profile of the search engines very closely. But are not subject to the same kind of skew from software robots that continually check web site and pay per bid positions.

More at: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/estimate-of-daily-search-volume.html

However, according to Michael VanDeMar, the statistical data shown by Google in the keyword tool, is absolutely useless for SEO purposes, but is directed towards PPC only. In an effort to spread the awareness of the uselessness of the Google Search Volume Numbers for SEO efforts, Michael did a small experiment on one of his websites. For the testing phase, Michael chose his poetry website and included 5 keywords namely, friendship poems, birthday poems, wedding poems, inspirational poems and best friend poems and ran exact matches for each keyword, thus leaving no room for an initial error.

The test duration was stated for 3 days, so as to establish a comparison for the delivered impressions against the Keyword Tool's estimated search volume. The results showed that some of the phrases received impressions as predicted by the Google keyword tool. Such as, for [birthday poems] the tool gave a number of 27,100 (which would be an average of 903 searches per day).

The bidding on the keyword for 3 days yielded 2,411 impressions (or 803 impressions per day).

According to Michael, “This is fine and dandy if I am only concerned about getting traffic from AdWords, of course. The thing is, if I rely on this data for my SEO efforts I will at best be most likely wasting my time. At worst I will be seriously wasting my time. By analyzing the referrers on the clicks generated during this test we can easily see why this is so.”

But on the other hand, the way I see it, the numbers displayed in the Google Keyword Tool, that have been termed as 'high', are probably due to the fact that Google's numbers are inflated because Google uses the Content Network in its estimation. Whereas, other Keyword Tools like WordTracker use Metacrawler and Dogpile, thus limiting their data acquisition scope.

Personally, at PageTraffic we are currently using both Wordtracker and Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

However I will still recommend a mix of Paid Keyword Research Tools and WordTracker. The good thing Google Keyword Tool brings to us is the search volume for local and long tail keywords which all of the paid keyword tools fail to report.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Paid Keyword Research Tools Vs Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Which one to use?

Over at the Search Engine Herald, Noel has come up with a post that talks about a very little known topic of 'Keyword Mining'. It is a common known fact that, every website has it own web statistics. These statistics enable the Webmasters to get information about their website such as, the number of visitors, visiting frequency and other details as well.

Although, there is an option of keeping the statistics 'private', yet most Webmasters either don't do so, or, unfortunately, some of them are clueless about the existence of the 'privacy' option. Now, Google is the biggest search engine out there and indexes practically every website in existence. At times, with the pages that are being indexed, these website statistics also get indexed by Google and are available for the whole world to see.

This indexing helps the third party user easily mine keyword data from the statistics and it is legal and safe as well. All you need to do is type,inurl:awstats.pl intitle:”Statistics of” in the Google search box. This will show a list of websites that have been indexed by Google to be viewed by general public. With Awstats, not only will you be able to view the day to day website traffic, but would also be able to view the extremely important, 'keyword statistics'.

Noel did a similar example, by taking the keyword “condominium.” Then he put in “inurl:awstats.pl intitle:”Statistics of” condominium “ in the Google search box. Below are the image of the results that he got from his search.

By studying the second image, you can clearly understand that, these were the keywords that users had used to find the specific website. This is one unique trick for keyword research!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Web Keywords Mining- the Gray Way!