Keyword Difficulty Score Meter: how to interpret levels

[IT-dmd]

I'm hoping to find what percentages change the levels for the difficulty score meter in the keyword difficulty tool. For example, when does a blue -- non-competitive -- move into the green level, and so forth. Also, I can't find the description (names?) of all the levels (highly competitive, non-competitive, etc).

Thanks for your help.

[Sean_Peerenboom]

Hi Charles,

Although, we have let our product team know that some users prefer a firm delineation for the moment we are sticking with the breakdown provided above. If you have any questions on this or have some feedback you would like sent up to the powers who rule the keyword difficulty section let me know!

Anyway hope this helps and I wish you an awesome day.

[cgs230]

Just curious if you you have any updates to this? this is great! I needed this.

[IT-dmd]

Thanks for pointing me to a useful explanation. It will be very helpful in my quest to appear as if I know what I'm talking about.

[Sean_Peerenboom]

Hi There,

This is an excellent question! This awesome summary is based on a post back in 2012 by SCL SEO and comes from this link http://moz.com/community/q/keyword-difficulty-score-assesment. So generally it breaks down like this:

• Sub 30 - (Blue) Low hanging fruit you can take advantage of.
• 30 - 35 (Green) Fairly easy with good on page and some quality anchored links.
• 35 - 40 - (Yellow) Will take a bit more work but still in reach may require, good on-site SEO and a solid link profile.
• 40 - 50 (Orange) Domain authority plays a much more pivotal role so it may take longer to rank for.
• 50+ (Red) All about resources. Onsite SEO needs to be totally nailed, including internal linking/ topic modelling etc. a strong & diverse link profile with good social signals and ... time.

Hope this helps and if you have any other questions or concerns please feel free to let us know.

Have a spectacular day and I look forward to hearing from you soon.