What's with the search volume on Google Keyword Tool?

[krx]

Can someone explain what the deal is with the "average search volume" function of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool? The estimates of search volume provided on the bar graphs do not square at all with the data on WordTracker or Keyword Discovery ... or on Overture, when it's working.

For example, keywords with a third of the bar filled on Google often have no OVT, no KD, and no WT. How does that merit a 33% full bar on average search volume?

 

[gwkg]

Overture uses yahoo data and hasnt been updated since Jan

Wordtracker uses data from dogpile and metacrawler to estimate search traffic

Keyword Discovery uses google queries in ISP logs they've contracted with to estimate search traffic

only google knows actual google data

 

[John Doe]

You should consider Googles dominance in SE market - they have about twice as much searches as Yahoo and around 10+ times more searches than Dogpile + Metacrawler together. Also geographical differences may matter. Better way to compare with this tool is to insert some popular query together with your keywords - these bars indicating relative volumes.

 

[krx]

Thanks for replies. It still seems suspect to me, though. Consider this:

In the same query results list, "tree farm" gets half a bar, as does "christmas tree farm". Intuitively it seems unlikely that a sub-niche gets as much search volume as the more generic category. Sure enough, tree farm has almost 3 times the OVT as christmas tree farm. Also, "oak tree farm" and "elgin tree farm" (again, all in the same query results list as "tree farm") get a third of a bar each. Now there is just no way - search engine and geographic variation considered - that these extremely narrow searches get anything like two-thirds the search volume of "tree farm" (one third is two-thirds of one half). In fact, all other keyword tools show they get virtually no search volume.

By all rights, these latter terms should show a tiny sliver on the google search volume bar at most.

And this isn't just one aberrant occurence. There are endless examples. I see things like this in every google keyword query I do. Has no one else noticed this?

 

[John Doe]

Googe even ranks "christmas tree farm" before "tree farm"

Keyword Discovery

tree farm 963
christmas tree farm 763


Wordtracker

christmas tree farm (s) 169
tree farm (s) 99

Seems in that case searches have generally similar volume. OVT has January data - why somebody should search for "christmas tree farm" in January?

 

[Sleepys]

I think that one of the main problems you are having with reading the Google Keyword tool, is that you keep looking at it as a certain % full. If one keyword looks like it is 33% full and the other looks like it is 66% full, that in no way means that the second is going to have exactly twice the searches. It may have much more.

Rather than thinking of the bars as being a certain percent filled, think of them as having notches. 1 notch is minimal traffic. 2 notches is slightly more traffic, and so on. The bar is not supposed to be filled to the exact portion of a full bar that the traffic is, but is supposed to be filled to the closest notch on the bar. If it has 1 notch it might have under 50 searches, if it has 2 notches it might have under 100, 3 nothced under 200. These are just guesses, but you get the drift. One thing to keep in mind, is that a full bar could be 10,000 searches or 100,000 searches. A full bar seems to be "over a certain number of searches". If a full bar is 10,000, then 25% would be 2,500, if it is 100,000, then a 25% would be 25,000. Therefore, the bar can't be filled to a percentage of the total, but rather just a "level of searches".

If a keyword has anything filled in the bar, that is an indication of minimal traffic. Anything past the minimum, you have to just use trial and error, and see how much traffic you get from a 50% full bar, or a 33% full bar.

 

[krx]

Sleepys, thanks so much for the detailed response. I think I get the drift. I also went to the Adwords Learning Center to see what they had to say. This is all I could find on the subject:

* Keyword Search Volume: Review statistics for advertisers bidding on the same keyword (Advertiser Competition), as well as user searches for that keyword on Google (Search Volume). The green bars shown represent a general low-to-high quantitative guideline to help you choose your keywords.

* GSearch Volume Trends: Review global trends and traffic histories for your keywords (Avg. Search Volume) and fluctuations in traffic for a twelve month period (Search Volume Trends). The graph represents traffic trends during the last twelve months. Each bar in the graph is shown relative to the keyword's overall performance for the twelve month period. (The baseline for search volume is considered to be an average of 100%.) You can also see in which month a given keyword received the highest volume of traffic during the twelve month period (Highest Volume Occurred In).

Bottom line, it seems to me, is that this is a VERY blunt instrument for measuring search volume. Also rather counter-intuitive ... at least to my mind. Makes me wonder why they don't just give you the number of searches ~ in numbers.