How accurate is the Google Keyword Tool?

[FlipTheBird]

I've been toying around (a lot) lately with the Google Keyword Tool. Question...

How accurate are the numbers given when using this tool?

For instance...

If I do a search on purple tricycles & it comes back with an exact search of say 825 per month, is that figure fairly accurate?? I know it's an 'estimated monthly average' number, but, can it be off by 30%, 50% even 70%???

Or is it pretty dead on?

This might be a dumb question, but, Google has a major conflict of interest going on IMO. The higher the numbers they quote for searches, the more advertising they can sell. So, if purple tricycles really has only 15 monthly searches, why wouldn't they inflate it to 800, 2,000, heck, a million?

Any thoughts and/or opinions on this would be appreciated

 

[UmbeeHosting]

There is no way to really find out the truth about it except asking Google. I guess we just have to take their word on it.

 

[enlytend]

It's an *estimate*. If you look at a list of estimates, you'll notice that the same numbers keep showing up. They are not "exact" numbers.

By default, the numbers are for Broad match, which pulls stats from the keyword and anything similar. (Spelling, singular/plural, verb tenses, synonyms ...) If you don't want all those other things included, set it to display exact match (searches for the keyword alone) and/or phrase match (searches including additional words.)

Very low search volume usually displays as 0. There may still be searches on those terms and they can produce valuable traffic. (i.e. local geo-targeted searches.)

There is no way to really find out the truth about it except asking Google. I guess we just have to take their word on it.

You CAN verify search volume!

1. Start an Adwords campaign targeting the keywords you want to research

• Get your ads on the first page and set your budget high enough that they aren't throttled by lack of funds.

• Look at the number of impressions in your reports.

 

[himanuzo]

If you use EXACT method in Adwords, this is more accurate than the normal method.

 

[hazelg]

What's found in Google Keyword Tool is the estimated 12-month average of queries in Google.

 

[pier]

I've been toying around (a lot) lately with the Google Keyword Tool. Question...

How accurate are the numbers given when using this tool?

For instance...

If I do a search on purple tricycles & it comes back with an exact search of say 825 per month, is that figure fairly accurate?? I know it's an 'estimated monthly average' number, but, can it be off by 30%, 50% even 70%???

Or is it pretty dead on?

This might be a dumb question, but, Google has a major conflict of interest going on IMO. The higher the numbers they quote for searches, the more advertising they can sell. So, if purple tricycles really has only 15 monthly searches, why wouldn't they inflate it to 800, 2,000, heck, a million?

Any thoughts and/or opinions on this would be appreciated

I think google is no.1 for now and it will be for a long time. I use them for adwords, i must say if you know how to use it they will treat you like a god.

Why would they inflate? Eventualy people will notice, they sell traffic and if you sell crapy traffic people will leave and take ther money with them. Thats not in any body interest:imho:

 

[RachaelJetkins]

In my opinion, the Google keyword tool is one of the most powerful tools. I have used it and it provides with the best of information. The SEO activities can be made better with the Google tools. Google will definitely dominate for a long period of time.

 

[alunk]

cannot compare with another tool, its the best right now.

 

[besttips]

Google Adwords Keyword Tool is not 100% accurate but its the most rusted resource for finding keywords and their statistics now. But surely its not 100% accurate and every user will find it after working with it.

 

[Bizzoyce]

Any keyword tool out there is not 100% but Adwords is the one I always use

 

[diyday]

If you're using the Tool for SEO keyword research for your site (and not for its intended ad keywords purpose), you should remember that the "Competition" results - low, medium, or high - only indicate, of course, how many advertisers are bidding on certain words, not how many others, like yourself, are optimizing their pages for those words.

Moreover, if you're SEOing a webpage for a certain word/phrase for the sake of serving Adsense ads on it, a Low competition reading might mean that not many (or any) relevant ads for the keyword or keyphrase will be seen by visitors.

 

[bloogy]

as a rough guess, for me I have found it to be around 80% accurate.

 

[wishbone]

I think, for some reason, Google will not show the accurate result, just an estimate as reference for people.