Why does KWFinder and SEMRush show different search volume?

[dp40oz]

Thank you for clarifying it, now everyone can make their own decision regarding which tool to use. I still think 3rd party data will always be more inaccurate than the source because of the way they record that data despite their advanced predictive models, but considering the fact that the source is barely accurate to begin with, as you said, the exact volume doesn't really matter.

Yea keep in mind Google's data was never exact. They used buckets. Like 2400, 2900, 3600 etc... They put the keyword into whatever bucket is closest. This is taken from a good article MOZ wrote about it.

Google Keyword Planner uses "buckets" to group keywords by traffic volume. When a keyword returns a traffic volume of 201,000, it isn't because the keyword was actually visited that many times, or really that it was particularly close to the number 201,000, but just that it was closer to 201,000 than the next biggest bucket of 246,000. The next lower bucket is 165,000, which gives us a nice 80,000-searches-per-month wiggle room — within which a keyword might actually fall and still be categorized as 201,000 by Keyword Planner.

https://moz.com/blog/google-keyword-planner-dirty-secrets

 

[blizz3010]

Maybe because you have nothing to say - oh wait, you're gonna say something even more stupid than last time...

Or maybe, I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone on a forum website that clearly has no idea what they are talking about.

 

[THUNDERELVI]

Or maybe, I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone on a forum website that clearly has no idea what they are talking about.

You already are wasting your time replying to me 2x saying you won't waste your time lol...

 

[1337WuLF]

Actually, Google does display its exact data to advertisers, so everything you said makes absolutely no fucking sense. Why would you get an average of some services that put up a different number than the source itself? It's counter-productive and stupid. Choose a tool, ask their support/developers where they get the data - if it's Google's API, use it. If not, don't (don't rely on their metrics/data I mean, you can still use the software for its other functions). The data Google gives you already is an average, so after that you dilute that average up or down by combining it with other random numbers, which as you said can be very low or high, therefore producing in the end an inaccurate and useless "average".

I was thinking the same thing...

Or maybe, I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone on a forum website that clearly has no idea what they are talking about.

Says the guy who came into this thread and provided 0 value to the discussion WHILST being a total jerk about it.

Here's the full answer. Tools like my tool (Keysearch), KWFinder and a few others get their data directly from Google in realtime. If you notice a difference between KWFinders data and Google's data there are 2 reasons.

1 - KWFinder "cleans" close variants. Meaning they use this method here http://searchengineland.com/get-old-google-keyword-planner-volume-254736 to clean keywords Google has deemed a close variant. Sometimes this is accurate sometimes not so much.

2 - They cache their data for a short time (I believe 30 days). Google updates their search volumes about every 30 days. Sometimes that 30 day span is different than KWFinders caching so there maybe a few days where their stats differ.

SEMrush also gets their keyword data from Google but doesn't do it in realtime. More popular keywords data get updated more often and less popular keywords data can be a few months old. Why do they do this? Because it allows them to use their own database rather then worrying about issues of scraping Google and realtime API limits.

So some say "Wait! SEMrush keyword data can sometimes be months old?" Yes. And it barely matters. Let's say SEMrush says a keyword has a volume of 1600 because it scraped it 3 months ago and haven't updated it yet. Now you go to Keyword Planner and see it's now 3600. That's a pretty big difference right? Well what does it matter? If you are doing keyword research today, pick a keyword, start building a page or site around it, in 3 months that volume is gonna change anyway again. So keyword volume is all about a basic "idea" of volume. It's always changing. Maybe next month it's 1600 again after you've already built the site. So caring about it matching Google at this very moment is kind of pointless as long as it was accurate at some point it should give you an overall idea.

Ahrefs and MOZ use clickstream data for keyword volumes. Clickstream data is search data collected by 3rd party services such as jumpshot from users browsing history. They then have an algorithm that compares that to google data they scraped a while back and have models predicting what the search volume should be. So their data will usually not match Google at all but in reality might be more accurate. Who the hell knows! All we know is Google's search volume data has always been questionable. My advice is don't get hung up on "Whats the exact correct search volume". Just get a basic idea. Is the keyword bringing in some traffic? Is it easy to rank? Go for it!

Eyy, an actual answer! Thank you