Google Adwords - trying to understand the figures...
-
Whilst researching keywords I often find the global monthly search on google adwords tool differs, yet the local (UK) is the same (or vice versa)
Example:
ready mix concrete - global 90,500 & local 18,100
ready mixed concrete - global 60,500 & local 18,100
or
forklift truck hire - global 18,100 & local 4,400
forklift truck rental - global 22,200 & local 4,400I'm making an assumption that for my local country, the phrases ready mix" and "ready mixed" are being treated the same, as are "hire" and "rental" but globally they are not. Am I correct?
Of course, they could be two completely separate terms according to Google but coincidentally, have the same search volume. However, I find this happens quite regularly.
Anybody shed any light?
-
You are looking at broad match Gordon, I tend to look at the exact term (exact match), you could have terms coming off which are not relevant, which you would almost neg out straight away but anyway that's another thread.
Just so you know Google takes the last 12 months of data and averages it, and it's not the exact number of searches either it's rounded.
If you put both terms in again, tick both of them and choose 'Download' it will break the search volume down into months for you, you will then see different search volumes for the local search each month.
Hope that helped a little.
-
Thanks Chris. Yes, some of these can indeed differ when exact type is chosen, but it's not the case all the time..
-
dare I ask what keyword tool you do use?
-
In addition to what everyone else has said, be sure to check your match types. On a broad match level "ready mix" and "ready mixed" aren't different. On an exact match I would assume it could be different.
-
I expect that the search volume for these terms varies by season - very strongly in some parts of the USA or world.
Where I live ready mix will not be searched during the winter and the use of forklifts also has seasonal change.
So, flux in the reported volumes should be expected.
-
Remember, Google uses LSI in their algorithms - so usually when you see strange discrepancies like this it means that the terms are being treated as semantically related. E.g. - if you search for "ready mix concrete" you'll see both terms (mix / mixed) in bold. Same for forklift truck / hire - you'll see both in bold.
I cant say that I know if this is the reason its just food for thought. I no longer use the Google Keyword Tool to estimate traffic as it can be really off - but what it still does well is measure relative traffic (keyword x has 2.5x the traffic as keyword y, and so on).
-
Yes, I would say that is a very accurate assessment Gordon. For example, "ready mix" and "ready mixed" are probably used interchangeably in the UK, however, in the USA the term "ready mixed" would be used much less often and instead we would maybe use "premix" or "premixed."
I do believe those kinds of differences would effect global search. Hope that helps!
Also, keep in mind that those Google numbers are estimates. They aren't hard and fast. They are based on data samplings and not complete data sets.
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
-
My start up brand name is 1# on Bing and Yahoo but not in the google top 50!
Hi all, I really hope you can help with this one! My brand/domain name "oboem" is nowhere to be seen on the Google rankings (france) but is number 1 on Bing and Yahoo. We are a young art crowdfunding start up and a full page article about us getting published in a magazine that will come out in december. "Oboem" is not a real word and no one else exept us should rank for it. 😞 I'm a bit out of ideas here. Thanks for the help
Keyword Research | | Oliver33
Oliver
oboem.com0 -
Getting good key search terms from google
are the related searches at the bottom of google highly searched keyword phrases and hence good to optimize other pages for on your website? Ron
Keyword Research | | Ron100 -
Does my website have a bad rank in google because EMD or lack content ?
Hello, I'm a beginner I just started my website xxx a few days ago. I submitted my url to several good quality directories (about 20, the last 3 days), I tried to write different descriptions for each directory. I have a very bad rank on google results (28+) for keywords "psychologue montluçon" I don't know if it's because of : lack of content, EMD, lack of backlinks (I submitted my website to directories, but its seems it takes a lot of time for updates). Sorry for bad english, if you can help, thank you !
Keyword Research | | adelie0 -
Google Keyword Tool: What is considered a unique keyword?
I'm trying to research keywords using Google's Keyword Tool. After looking at results, I have the following questions: 1. Does singular/plurals of a word count as two different keywords to Google (ie: photobooth and photobooths)? Would I need to have a unique page targeting each word or will one page on my site be sufficient for targeting both? 2. I've noticed that different variations of keywords have the same global monthly search results. This leads me to believe that Google see's all of them as one keyword. ie: "photo booth props" and "props for a photo booth" and "props with photo booth", all have 22,200 search global monthly search resluts. On the other hand "moustache prop" and "prop moustache" have different global monthly search results (480 and 590). Can anyone explain this?
Keyword Research | | Alchemist230 -
Google keyword rankings
I show a MON icon (it looks like a calendar page) for all my google rankings. The icon is not clickable. Can anybody tell me what this is? Also, I use to be highly ranked in 100's of keywords in google now barely anything. The domain is several years old and has performed in well in the past. Can't figure out what is going on.
Keyword Research | | ecoscott0 -
Branded vs Generic keywords - is Google treating their rank equaly!?
Several times I have noticed that website receiving sort of a rankings drop penalty for certain wrongly built on-page strategies that involves keyword stuffing, wrong keyword density(too much) etc. The question is - how you guys think - is branded keywords receiving the same treatment from Google then generic ones? And here is why - for one popular brand I see that they ranking for their brand keyword very high(1th) but keyword density is awful - more then 10%. So, my guess is - if this keyword density you would apply for generic keyword you will end up nowhere to be found for it! Is that could be truth? Any experiments info about that? thanks and regards, Jungles
Keyword Research | | Jungles0 -
How advanced is Google synonym recognition?
Hi all. I am currently helping a company that offers training courses and was wandering if Google would recognize 'Training' as a synonym of 'Course' as effectively they both mean the same thing but seemed to be compounded? So instead in my keywords/title etc.having. Business Training Course I could get away with only Business Training OR Business Course. In most cases the keyword difficulty for training is a 5% harder than course but as this is for a professional company and not a standard academic I felt training seemed more appropriate.
Keyword Research | | starydynamo0 -
Google Trends not Consistent with Google Keyword Tool
Hi Everyone, I was doing a little Google Trends research on Real Estate and narrowed it down to my state. I have found that on Trends it is showing a two or three towns above the one I am living in showing that it gets a lot of search volume. They will put the top one as a 1 and then the others below it as like .87 or .675 etc. I am taking that as 87% of the top one or 67.5% of the top city in search volume. I checked these numbers against the Google Keyword Tool and found that my town still gets more exact visits (4 times the amount of the one Google Trends ranks #1) I can't see the actual search volume on Google Trends but was wondering....Which one do you trust? I have done some testing on it and realized that for the most part, the numbers in the keyword tool RARELY change. Do they maybe update it once per year? FYI: As you know I trended real estate so what I did on the Keyword tool is "Town State Real Estate" and looked at both Broad and Exact searches. I would appreciate any guidance you guys can give on how I should be paying attention to this data. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | blake-766240