Keyword Search Tools - Keyword Suggestion Tools - Free Keyword Tools - Keyword Research

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Keyword research

Keyword Research is the science of discovering keywords that internet surfers are using to find the information they seek. It is estimated that search engines such as Google and Yahoo provide 8% of traffic to websites.

• The success of a Website is dependant on the quantity and quality of its content.
• The content should be structured around keywords.

No keyword research tool can accurately identify every search conducted for a given keyword.

Keyword research tools provide access to databases of information provided by the search engines.

Each keyword tool database is subject to their sources and they all use different sources.

As a result:

• The numbers of searches reported by the different tools vary.
• KEI calculations will differ.

Until recently, Google, the largest source for search engine keyword referrals, only provided relative frequency graphs.

From July 2008, Google has commenced offering actual numbers of searches for the previous month.

Keyword Research Tools:

OVERTURE KEYWORD SUGGESTION:

The first keyword tool that actually gave SEO keyword selection was Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool (now owned by Yahoo).

This tool is is dying. The keyword counts have not been updated since January 2007 and Yahoo! publicly said they will no longer support or maintain it. Overture's keyword suggestion tool was a great tool whose purpose was to promote Overture (or Yahoo Search Marketing).

A number of software developers created keyword tools that bombard this database with so many requests that the tool barely (if ever) responds any more. Overture used to get a good number of searches per day. Here's a look back in 2003 when they received 167 million searches per day and were pretty competitive with Google at the time.

This keyword suggestion tool obtained its information from searches done on the Overture.com search engine and based the data for its keyword count over the 30 days prior to the month you would be searching for keywords. There has never been certainty of the actual size that the 30-days of database covered, but it was sizeable as it produced counts considerably higher than other keyword sources.

The creators of WordTracker, discovered back in 2000/2001 that the data Overture was providing in their Keyword Suggestion Tool was NOT producing the kind of traffic promised for them or their SEO clients. In otherwise, it was inaccurate.

When they analyzed what was going on and why the traffic for a specific keyword did not produce the results the Overture keyword suggestion tool promise, they Apparently, the problem is that when business and bid management companies used automated scripts to query Overture.com about a particular bid position for their paid results, each time a robot searches for a keyword phrase, that query WILL count toward the Keyword Suggestion Tool count. This could potentially increase the numbers and give you inaccurate figures to base your research upon.

The following table demonstrates some problems.

A:

The results using Keywords Analyzer (Overture) shows that there is no apparent change in the number of searches in "the preceding month" for the keyword "life expectancy" - not surprising as Overture is not being updated. The Google results has increased suggesting an increase in R/S and fall in KEI - You are more likely to achieve high rankings for keywords with low R/S and high KEI.

Overture is a free tool - http://inventory.overture.com/ It is so popular that it is virtually impossible to link to it.

Keyword Discovery Historical is also free and provides a database of similar size. - http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html - It is not as well known and seems to be more accessable.

F:

Note the relatively high number of searches as shown by Google and the increased KEI.

WORDTRACKER

WordTracker is the first real keyword tool that offered a real toolset to harvest and analyze keywords.

Wordtracer utilised their observation that the keyword data and information collected by Meta Search Engines allowed them to avoid the automated robot searches that was inflating keyword count with the Overture tool.

These search engines do not attract that much attention from robots because they do not offer pay-per-click services and most Internet marketers tend to focus on the big three engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. Results on Wordtracker therefore are more accurate when it comes to gauging what kind of traffic you may receive when ranking on Page One for a specific keyword.

It acquires search eengine logs from two search engines DogPile.com and MetaCrawler.com, both meta search engines.

So this collective data that WordTracker receives from Dogpile.com and MetaCrawled reflects keyword phrase counts over the past 90-100 days, and their database during that period of time is usually between 300-340 million keywords.

InfoSpace, Inc., which owns both Dogpile.com and Metacrawler.com, occupy about .5% (point 5 percent) of the entire searches on the Internet (it was .9% as reflected in that 2005 chart).

This ultimately means that there is at least 99.5% of the rest of the world's search data, 96% of which is housed by Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com.

Whiile WordTracker is the most accurate of the entire bunch of databases, it is far from being scientifically accurate.

So when you want the freshest keyword data for your project, do not hesitate to think twice and use WordTracker as the source.

KEYWORD DISCOVERY:

From 1999 until mid 2005, WordTracker was really the sole and dominant force as a keyword research service and source of keywords.

There were other keyword services who tried to penetrate the market and failed -- but most keyword tools that came out were usually desktop tools that used the FREE Overture keyword suggestion tool as the source of data. And those developers are now nowhere to be found in the wake of the Overture keyword tool's virtual demise.

Then, around July 2005, Keyword Discovery emerged onto the scene with what seemed to be this massive keyword database of 32 - 35 billion keywords that would overshadow and compete in a major way with WordTracker's keyword database.

Keyword Discovery said that their database contained keyword data from major search engines (some of which were Google, MSN, Yahoo, Alta Vista and many others) and that their database was in the billions.

The keyword database was large and it gave count numbers in the millions for a good many number of main keywords.

However, the problem occurred that the count were overblown, much like the Overture tool's inflated numbers as a result of automated keyword scripts, ranking tools and big management script that would hit the large search engines where the data came from.

The one major advantage to the data collected in this database was it spanned over a period of one year, so seasonal terms could be mined, but the huge search count figures brought into question the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the search count.

This was something Keyword Discovery had to address and they did so with a new database called their Premium Database.

The first large database Keyword Discovery started out with that contained around 35 billion keywords was moved into a secondary archived position called the Historical database - the Global Historical database.

Then the Premium Database was moved into the forefront as the default database. The advantage of the new database was that Keyword Discovery could segment the searches done in different countries.

This new Premium Database was initially comprised of 4,000,000 (4 million) private panel users and the promise of this database would be that it would alleviate any skew from actual robotic scripts and bid management tools check.

The parent company of Keyword Discovery, Trellian, Inc., distributes a toolbar from its site and other various sites.

Whenever someone uses that toolbar installed on their desktop computer, it not only acts as a tool for the consumer, it also reports back to the Keyword Discovery Premium Database that someone made a search on a particular search engine.

Since the data that is collected reports directly back from the toolbar itself the data is not from search engine logs, there is no potential for skew in the search count whatsoever.

There was a huge and dramatic shift in the search count numbers going from the now Historical archived database and moving to the new Premium Database.

NicheBOT users that utilized the older archived historical database were shocked at how low the numbers were at first because the database size was quite small when you consider there were only 4,000,000 users as the sample size and we know the Internet to have 1.5 billion users.

So with the WordTracker database and the Keyword Discovery database, keyword research is not particularly accurate as the data is relatively small, but it is representative and certainly better than guessing.

Google certainly is a better way to confirm whether a keyword has some true volume on a particular keyword phrase or not.

GOOGLE KEYWORDS

Google is currently the most used search engine.

 

Google did not allow you to view any exact search volume counts with any specific number.

Google displayed a bar graph from 1 to 5 with the number 1 representing a very low search volume and 5 representing extremely high search count.
The following is a typical graph:

The Updated Keyword Research Tool

From July 2008, Google has enhanced its research tool by providing numerical data.

 

You can access here The Google Keyword Research Tool

Some experts recommend that if you are using WordTracker or Keyword Discovery to find the high volume keywords to check against the Google Search Volume graph shown in the above screenshot. It's always best to verify one smaller source against the biggest available source.

Here's a screenshot of a Google Trends graph:

And since, once again, Google does not show the actual search count in the trends graphs, there's no real way to show a comparison of popularity from one keyword overlapping another. Google's keyword engine discovering keywords that may not be identifiable from other services.

Keywords Analyzer

This is my first choice keyword research tool. It utilises the overture database. Although this is no longer current, Google Trends (see graph above) demonstrates that there is no significant shift in the number of searches being conducted for the keywords that I am seeking.

A useful feature that can be utilised with Keywords Analyzer is the "Results in Quotes" when searching with Overture. (Settings> Campagne - Get Results in Qoutes. This returns the Google results for a narrow search. Using the example of life expectancy table, there are 280,000 webpages on broad search and 14700 with narrow search. This feature identifies lower R/S and higher KEI. "Life expectancy table" has a reasonable number of searches and would therefore be a useful keyword phrase to target.

 

By searching for "accountant London" on overture.co.uk a number of additional useful keyword phrases are revealed by Keywords Analyzer.

 

With the facility to "dig" during your search, hundreds of keyword phrases will be revealed by Keywords Analyzer.

Nichebot.com

This website provides access to data from Keyword Discovery, WordTracker and overture. There is an option to test the program for 14 days free of charge on the assumption that you will continue with membership. There is a fee for one month or one year but additional credits are required to access some of the databases - one credit is required for each keyword.

 

50 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($7.35)
100 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($14.70)
200 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($29.00)
350 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($49.50)
500 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($70.00)
1000 Additional NicheBOT Premium Credits ($135.00)
(25th June 2008)