Keyword Difficulty Conflict

[shannonelder6]

Hi Folks,

I was doing reverse reengineering one website today. I put that website in Site Overview and for a specific KW "lesco bill estimator", KW difficulty appeared as 21 in the columns grid but when I clicked on this KW to check other stats like CTR and priority, etc it showed me a different difficulty which was 18. It is quite confusing for me, why there is a difference and which one is correct?  For reference, website is "https://lescobillonline.net/" and I've mentioned that Keyword above. If someone answers this questions it could be helpful for others to understand the algo behind this situation or scenario.

Thanks, MOZ Community !

Cheers.

Shannon!

[shannonelder6]

Now, this answer makes sense. Thank you for the technical and detailed answer.
 Appreciated !!

Thanks!

[lauren.s]

Hey Shannon!

These results can be different because the SERP Analysis is representative of a live result but the KWBS data would be limited by the 2-week update cadence. So it's a matter of live data (present data) vs data that updates every 2 weeks (past data).

It is noted on the Keyword Explorer tool that it is updated every two weeks.

I hope this information helps!

[Chris.Menke]

Do remember these numbers are for approximate guideline use, there's nothing absolute about them. Use the  results to give you an idea that one term is more or less competitive than another by a little bit or by a lot.

[shannonelder6]

Thanks for your quick reply, Chris.

Yep, it is ignorable somehow. But I was quite worried about it when it came to a big difference.  I took another KW example and it showed me 25 and when I clicked that KW, KD was 35.

It's quite surprising for me.

[Chris.Menke]

Shannon,

I can't answer exactly what's going on behind the scenes that causes the two different numbers to get spit out but I can tell you that the difference between 18 and 21 is so little as to be negligible.  When you get down to long tail keywords like that, things can get a little wonky, as far as exactness.  I wouldn't worry about that, if it were me.