How accurate is SEOMoz's keyword analysis tool?

[mattylac]

For the most part, SEOMoz's keyword analysis tool has been in line with other tools like Adwords keyword tool with regards to competitive level. I have just encountered a keyword though that a client may choose to compete on that seems to be far off.

keyword phrase: online math games

Adwords competitive level: Low

SEOMoz competitive level: 80

This seems like a sizeable difference (I know the two compare all results vs first page authority's, but typically they are in line with each other).

With other related keywords for the industry in question, SEOMoz and Adwords seem to be in line. This one just got me thinking. I know the SEOMoz score is a sign of the strength of the top results and that the "low" score from Adwords may be a sign of much weaker results on the following pages (with a higher number of weaker pages vs fewer high authority outliers).

**Question: **

How accurate is SEOMoz keyword analysis tool and what other keyword analysis tools are you guys/gals using that you like? I have tried others but many provide duplicate insights.

[james25]

To put it simply, Adwords difficulty is based on the competition level of other advertisers, whereas SEOMoz keyword difficulty is based on the top 10 organic search results.

Adwords = Sponsored results

Seomoz = Organic results

In other words, don't bother with the adwords competition unless you're only interested in advertising on adwords.

[ChiarynMiranda]

Hi Mathew,

Thanks for writing in with a great question.

We actually use different parameters than Adwords to rate the keyword difficulty. We find our numbers with Mozrank, Moztrust, Domain Authority and Page Authority to calculate the keyword difficulty. These metrics are calculated by our own crawl and algorithm and we use them to calculate the Keyword Difficulty score based o the first 20 results so the number that they display can sometimes be different then what Adwords shows.

If you want to know more about the metrics we use, you can take a look at this resource: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain-authority

I went ahead and marked this as a discussion questions so that others can recommend the tools they use.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

-Chiaryn

[mattylac]

Search was run in Canada, exact match result on Adwords and for Google, Canada-English with SEOMoz.