Question About Keyword Difficulty Report
-
If I am trying to assess the difficulty of ranking for a longtail keyword phrase that is 3 or more words long, should I put that phrase in quotes when I enter into the Keyword Analysis Tool or not? For example, let's say I want to see how hard it would be to rank for the phrase "best educational resources for teachers". Should I enter into the keywords analysis tool as "best educational resources for teachers" or just as best educational resources for teachers? Which one would give me the most accurate difficulty assessment for that phrase?
-
Good luck - hope I didn't steer you wrong
I can't say I always follow the logic in these tools...however that's a totally different story! -
Hah! That's really funny. Now I have to go try it.
-
Thanks Andrea and danatanseo. I was thinking the same thing. I was wondering because so far every keyword phrase that I have entered into the tool (no matter how ridiculous) has come back as moderately or extremely difficult to rank for. For example, the phrase "watermelon wrapped in barbwire" even comes back as highly competitive (53%) unless I enter it in in quotes. Most of the sites that rank for this silly phrase have low DA and PA.
-
Dana makes an interesting point of Boolean searches. Unless you're using a tool that specifically uses that method (like MyBuzz Metrics), most tools are set up to already assume it's one phrase and thus don't need quotes.
-
Hi Andy. I would enter it into the tool without quotes. I believe searching a term with quotes is a type of Boolean search that most real people don't take the time to use. Someone might correct me on the Boolean part, lol, but unless you're visitors are librarians I doubt they use quote, brackets etc when typing terms into the search bar. Hope that helps!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Competitor reporting
We are in the process of creating customer profiles, conducting in-depth keyword/competitor research, fleshing out a content strategy, addressing old content, meta data etc, and researching sites (particular industry news sites) relevant to our industry who could be sources of authoritative backlinks. Once we receive approval from the powers that be, we'll start putting our strategy in motion. However, we are looking at SEO efforts as a long-term plan the entire organization understands is necessary. If our strategy is sound, I would think we'll start seeing results and some competitors will begin to take notice (and action.) So here is my question: How easy is it for a competitor to "report" a small/medium size business as breaking Google's rules i.e. could a competitor claim we are scraping their content (or content off of any site for that matter) and anonymously email Google? I think the answer to that question is "yes." How closely would Google look into the claim? We have zero plans on doing anything shady or underhanded but I was wondering if it is a simple process for a competitor to impact our efforts this way? Thanks for any insight.
Competitive Research | | SEOSponge0 -
Absolute vs Relative URL Interlinking Observation & Question
So I've read a few articles about this here on SEOMOZ and other sites. I understand the benefit of relative url linking from a developer's point view. I've also read that using either internal linking methods doesn't really have any real SEO benefits or cons that would impact your rankings greatly. (Except with the slight chance of getting traffic and backlinks from a scraper site.) But I'm seeing examples where this may not be true. I did a search for 5 star hotels in Vegas in google. Some of the top results were Hotels.com and Expedia.com Priceline.com was on the second page. I used the search operator link: to Hotels.com, Expedia.com and Priceline.com vegas hotel pages respectively: Hotels.com: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotels.com%2Fde1504033-st5%2Ffive-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada%2F&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.hotels.com%2Fde1504033-st5%2Ffive-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada%2F&gs_l=serp.3...3650.7043.0.7972.8.7.1.0.0.0.90.363.7.7.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1j2.4kALxt0jpxI Expedia.com: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.expedia.com%2F5Star-Las-Vegas-Hotels.s50-0-d178276.Travel-Guide-Filter-Hotels&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.expedia.com%2F5Star-Las-Vegas-Hotels.s50-0-d178276.Travel-Guide-Filter-Hotels&gs_l=serp.3...1681.3746.0.4076.6.6.0.0.0.0.100.348.5j1.6.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1j2.KxqwbH-YFV0 Priceline: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=d&site=webhp&q=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.priceline.com%2F5-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada-NV-filter-tk-s5-c291680-hl.hotel-reviews-hotel-guides&oq=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.priceline.com%2F5-star-hotels-las-vegas-nevada-NV-filter-tk-s5-c291680-hl.hotel-reviews-hotel-guides&gs_l=serp.3...11265.12321.0.12767.5.5.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.HYtfct4MS7M The results were that priceline had no backlinks internally or externally to their vegas page. Whereas their competitors did, most of which were from their own internal pages. Looking at priceline's linking structure and architecture, they use a relative url structure and sessions ids to link to various pages. Their competitors don't. Wouldn't you argue that this may be adversely affecting their rankings. I know other things are to be factored in if you dig deeper. But that seems to be a major difference. It just seems that their content management system or how their site is coded isn't really passing link juice.
Competitive Research | | workathomecareers0 -
What's the difference between 'external links' and 'linking domains to this domain' in my report?
I'm looking at a competitor analysis report. The number provided for 'external links' is 150. The number for 'external links to this domain' is 4860 and 'linking domains to this domain' is 232. What are the differences between these numbers?
Competitive Research | | lthompsonon0 -
How to check Google Keyword rankings?
Hey, So I recently watched the DuckDuckGo commercial about Google's results bubble. My question is how can you get the actual keyword rankings of relevant key phrases without Google taking your locations and search history into account? Would it just be a case of clearing your cache & history from the beginning of time or is there an accurate tool (other than SEOmoz ofc that I can use? Best regards, Dan
Competitive Research | | Sparkstone0 -
Identify keywords certain sites target
Hello, I've been asked to identify what keywords a group of blogs/communities might target so that we might gain some insight for our own SEM purposes. It's been several years since I used SEOmoz's tools, so they have changed a lot. I couldn't remember if you had such a tool, but it appears you do not--or at least not that I am finding. I was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of such a tool where I can input a subdomain, and have a report stating which keywords are the ones the domain rates highly for. To be clear: I'm not looking for a traffic estimation or anything; simply a breakdown of what keywords a specific page or domain support most. P.S. I did a search on here for certain terms like "competitive keyword targets" and so forth, and saw no matching QA. I'm sorry if there is a duplicate! Thanks,
Competitive Research | | krisgosser
Kris0 -
Can you track multiple domains with the same key words and not use up your keyword limit?
I have roughly 7 domains that I am trying to monitor with the same set of keywords. Is there a way to do this without using up your keyword limit. They are the same words just different sites.
Competitive Research | | sixthcents0 -
Question about Keywords & Ranking
I hope this isn't too basic of a question, but I am confused about something. If you use the Keyword Research tool and type in "Stained Concrete Flooring", the 3rd result (stainedconcrete.org) has the lowest numbers of any of the sites in the top 8-10... Is it because they have a large amount of traffic? or is there some other factor that I am missing?
Competitive Research | | Timvroom0 -
Creating Sub Pages To Target Specific Keywords
Hi Guys, Hope you can answer this question. Our website is currently on the first page in position 6 for a competitive keyword, domain is 11years old and currently has a PR of 4. At the moment there are 4 competitors above us one of which as two listings, they have managed to do this by creating a page dedicated to the keyword. E.g www.ourdomain.co.uk/key-word.html. Do you think we would achieve a good ranking if we built the same page but with fresh content and links pointing to that page? Cheers.
Competitive Research | | ScottBaxterWW0