[Guide] How To Save $$ A Month On KWFinder

[Holzr]

Edit: I realise now the title may be a little misleading. Perhaps a better one would be:

[Guide] How To Replicate KWFinder Scores Without Paying For KWFinder

Note: I will be referencing mainly to this thread in this posts so open it in a new tab so you can refer to it and understand what I am talking about and where I have got my numbers from.

Note 2: Yes this uses DA/PA to come up with a score. This is good for screening/filtering however I suggest you manually check all these results before making a final decision on keyword selection. DA/PA is a pretty useless metric and should not be used exclusively. I like to use Google Search Operators (click the link to read my guide on how to use them) to do a quick On-Page screen to see if pages are targeting the keywords properly.

I've been using KWFinder for a few years now as I feel it's the best of the bunch of tools out there despite its many flaws. 1 being costs and the other being it's Keyword Difficulty Scores (the fact that they don't refresh, often outdated and incorrect, and there is no way to easily mass check a whole list of keywords unless you pay them). KWFinder is expensive for what it is (considering it grabs all of its data and suggestions from AdWords).

After starting a new project that required a lot of keyword data to be checked (in terms of search volume etc.) I knew that KWFinder was going to be way too expensive so looked around and found this rather new tool (I am not affiliated with them in any way, I'm just a user and a very happy one at that). I was going to need to check 10,000+ keywords a day which is not even close to being covered in KWFinder Agency plan. So if you are looking for a replacement I'd highly recommend it as the prices are brilliant. Twin Words is the tool I will be using and referring to in this guide. Their comp. score uses AI and I have no clue what metrics etc. they use. The reason I love them is their limits are really good.

So I thought to myself how can I still get a basic comp. score like KWFinder without paying for KWFinder.

The Method

Aim: To build a simple clone of KWFinders comp. score calculator.

Rank = (DA*0.25) + (PA*0.4) + (MR*10*0.22) + (MT*10*0.13)

I've decided to cut out MR/MT and therefore adjust the numbers to work with just DA/PA. So my new calculation is as follows:

(PA * 0.575) + (DA * 0.425)

It's been tricky to test this out 100% due to location bias with Google etc. despite using SERPS Location changer etc. So if anyone feels these numbers are nowhere near in line with KWFinder then I'll see about playing around with them more to get them a little more accurate.

This method will use the following:

• MozBar
• Excel/Sheets (I like to use sheets as it's already in the cloud etc.)

1. Create Moz Account and Install MozBar
2. Create a Excel/Sheets file and create a little table like the following and add in the formula from above and use the average function for the bottom to average results (this will give you the overall score)

1. Get a list of keywords and import them to Twin Words Ideas, filter on search volume.
2. Choose A Keyword
3. Search for it on Google
4. Click on the icon to the right of the Moz logo on the left hand side of the mozbar (called export SERP to CSV)
5. Copy URL, PA, DA and insert them into the excel/sheet you made above.
6. There you have it! A KWFinder Keyword Difficulty Score. Twin Words Ideas is something like $20 per month.

Yes, this is time consuming. However if you don't have that many keywords to check AND/OR on a low budget then it's ideal.

Speeding Up The Process

Since the data you download from MozBar is in a CSV it would not be to difficult to create a simple tool where you could input a file and it would then spit out the results for you by grabbing the required data. This would save you opening the file, copying the relevant data and pasting it into the excel/sheet. I might even give this a go and code something when I have a free evening.

Now the next thing to do that would be great would be a way to automate downloading SERP data. Not sure on this and I've done some digging. Moz API might be worth taking a look at. If so then you could create a tool to enter Keyword and then display volume and score just like KWFinder.

Conclusion

I hope someone finds this helpful. It's a nice way of getting a score if you don't have the budget for KWFinder/Don't want to use it.

If anyone has ideas for automating this further then it would be great to hear. Perhaps I could code something basic when I have time.

Enjoy

 

[thetoothfairy]

nice guide. thank you man. bookmarked for later use

 

[nayannp]

Great guide bro

 

[TechEinstien]

This will be helpful.

 

[NeoThePrime]

Today morning I purchesed Kwfinder.

 

[theRevolt]

Edit: I realise now the title may be a little misleading. Perhaps a better one would be:

[Guide] How To Replicate KWFinder Scores Without Paying For KWFinder

Note: I will be referencing mainly to this thread in this posts so open it in a new tab so you can refer to it and understand what I am talking about and where I have got my numbers from.

Note 2: Yes this uses DA/PA to come up with a score. This is good for screening/filtering however I suggest you manually check all these results before making a final decision on keyword selection. DA/PA is a pretty useless metric and should not be used exclusively. I like to use Google Search Operators (click the link to read my guide on how to use them) to do a quick On-Page screen to see if pages are targeting the keywords properly.

I've been using KWFinder for a few years now as I feel it's the best of the bunch of tools out there despite its many flaws. 1 being costs and the other being it's Keyword Difficulty Scores (the fact that they don't refresh, often outdated and incorrect, and there is no way to easily mass check a whole list of keywords unless you pay them). KWFinder is expensive for what it is (considering it grabs all of its data and suggestions from AdWords).

After starting a new project that required a lot of keyword data to be checked (in terms of search volume etc.) I knew that KWFinder was going to be way too expensive so looked around and found this rather new tool (I am not affiliated with them in any way, I'm just a user and a very happy one at that). I was going to need to check 10,000+ keywords a day which is not even close to being covered in KWFinder Agency plan. So if you are looking for a replacement I'd highly recommend it as the prices are brilliant. Twin Words is the tool I will be using and referring to in this guide. Their comp. score uses AI and I have no clue what metrics etc. they use. The reason I love them is their limits are really good.

So I thought to myself how can I still get a basic comp. score like KWFinder without paying for KWFinder.

The Method

Aim: To build a simple clone of KWFinders comp. score calculator.



I've decided to cut out MR/MT and therefore adjust the numbers to work with just DA/PA. So my new calculation is as follows:

(PA * 0.575) + (DA * 0.425)

It's been tricky to test this out 100% due to location bias with Google etc. despite using SERPS Location changer etc. So if anyone feels these numbers are nowhere near in line with KWFinder then I'll see about playing around with them more to get them a little more accurate.

This method will use the following:

• MozBar
• Excel/Sheets (I like to use sheets as it's already in the cloud etc.)

1. Create Moz Account and Install MozBar
2. Create a Excel/Sheets file and create a little table like the following and add in the formula from above and use the average function for the bottom to average results (this will give you the overall score)

View attachment 103656

1. Get a list of keywords and import them to Twin Words Ideas, filter on search volume.
2. Choose A Keyword
3. Search for it on Google
4. Click on the icon to the right of the Moz logo on the left hand side of the mozbar (called export SERP to CSV)
5. Copy URL, PA, DA and insert them into the excel/sheet you made above.
6. There you have it! A KWFinder Keyword Difficulty Score. Twin Words Ideas is something like $20 per month.

Yes, this is time consuming. However if you don't have that many keywords to check AND/OR on a low budget then it's ideal.

Speeding Up The Process

Since the data you download from MozBar is in a CSV it would not be to difficult to create a simple tool where you could input a file and it would then spit out the results for you by grabbing the required data. This would save you opening the file, copying the relevant data and pasting it into the excel/sheet. I might even give this a go and code something when I have a free evening.

Now the next thing to do that would be great would be a way to automate downloading SERP data. Not sure on this and I've done some digging. Moz API might be worth taking a look at. If so then you could create a tool to enter Keyword and then display volume and score just like KWFinder.

Conclusion

I hope someone finds this helpful. It's a nice way of getting a score if you don't have the budget for KWFinder/Don't want to use it.

If anyone has ideas for automating this further then it would be great to hear. Perhaps I could code something basic when I have time.

Enjoy

The main issue I think you left out, how to do this easily for 100s/ 1000s of keywords? Getting the data from the URLs is pretty easy, it is getting the top 10 results reliably for many keywords that proves difficult.

 

[Topiano]

Good post op But I’ll just do group-buy

 

[Holzr]

The main issue I think you left out, how to do this easily for 100s/ 1000s of keywords? Getting the data from the URLs is pretty easy, it is getting the top 10 results reliably for many keywords that proves difficult.

Yep exactly and this is the next thing I'd like to figure out how to do. I can't work out how exactly to do it but I'll figure it out. Moz API has the ability for you to get data from a URL. So essentially I need to figure out a way to grab SERP results then run a loop to do a GET request from Moz API for DA/PA of each URL then I can therefore automate the process. KWfinder uses Moz data so it's certainly doable. I might even contact Moz to do some research or ask here (BHW) about ways to grab SERP results (whilst also also picking the search location) without scraping ideally. I think it's definitely doable to scale this and automate it. The only issue I would see is running this live each request. I think it would be more sensible to start a DB when each new keyword is searched to add the comp score to the DB and refresh it's comp score each week or so (KWFinder just stores the last requested score so I've seen loads of times a score of 2 jump to 40 or a 20 jump to 30 etc.).

Good post op But I’ll just do group-buy

Couldn't find any decent group buys for KWFinder and also you still run into the issue of keyword limits and scores being outdated. If you have a list of 299 keywords even if you see scores they are likely outdated so you need to manually click each result to refresh the score. I'd like to figure a way of automating my mentioned process to make it quicker and maybe add a few other features in with it .

 

[theRevolt]

Yep exactly and this is the next thing I'd like to figure out how to do. I can't work out how exactly to do it but I'll figure it out. Moz API has the ability for you to get data from a URL. So essentially I need to figure out a way to grab SERP results then run a loop to do a GET request from Moz API for DA/PA of each URL then I can therefore automate the process. KWfinder uses Moz data so it's certainly doable. I might even contact Moz to do some research or ask here (BHW) about ways to grab SERP results (whilst also also picking the search location) without scraping ideally. I think it's definitely doable to scale this and automate it. The only issue I would see is running this live each request. I think it would be more sensible to start a DB when each new keyword is searched to add the comp score to the DB and refresh it's comp score each week or so (KWFinder just stores the last requested score so I've seen loads of times a score of 2 jump to 40 or a 20 jump to 30 etc.).



Couldn't find any decent group buys for KWFinder and also you still run into the issue of keyword limits and scores being outdated. If you have a list of 299 keywords even if you see scores they are likely outdated so you need to manually click each result to refresh the score. I'd like to figure a way of automating my mentioned process to make it quicker and maybe add a few other features in with it .

Yeah the easy part is moz can do that with free Api account but crawling Google is the issue. The account you will spend in proxies will make you not save anything

 

[Holzr]

Yeah the easy part is moz can do that with free Api account but crawling Google is the issue. The account you will spend in proxies will make you not save anything

Yeah and ideally I'd like not scrape the data if at all possible. I'd like to figure out how KW research tools do it. I highly doubt they scrape their SERP results. I'm going to do some digging and asking around and hooefhope find something. I've already found a few services which offer an API service to pull serp results and use their own proxies etc.

 

[Deleted member 719276]

veri nais me like it dear father @Holzr

 

[theRevolt]

Yeah and ideally I'd like not scrape the data if at all possible. I'd like to figure out how KW research tools do it. I highly doubt they scrape their SERP results. I'm going to do some digging and asking around and hooefhope find something. I've already found a few services which offer an API service to pull serp results and use their own proxies etc.

I'd be surprised if you end up getting this much cheaper when factoring multiple other accounts.. but keep us posted

 

[Kenobii]

This is awesome OP! Will definitely try it out

 

[dlyhai]

Nice, i would try it out, thanks

 

[Boriss]

Amazing guide. Thanks @Holzr

Nicely done, nicely done.

 

[anushhka]

Thanks

 

[ezee-e]

This is great OP - really helpful for creating scores on the cheap.

It's easy to search google for the top 10 and then perform the calculation, (I use the api approach mentioned by @theRevolt - another thanks). The only thing I want know is to how to get the search volume/CPC.

Does anyone know how to get search volume/CPC without having to apply to the long winded API approval process for Google Keyword Planner? Preferably for free or very cheaply.

 

[theRevolt]

This is great OP - really helpful for creating scores on the cheap.

It's easy to search google for the top 10 and then perform the calculation, (I use the api approach mentioned by @theRevolt - another thanks). The only thing I want know is to how to get the search volume/CPC.

Does anyone know how to get search volume/CPC without having to apply to the long winded API approval process for Google Keyword Planner? Preferably for free or very cheaply.

Not aware of any accurate FREE sources, your best bet is the KWP api, although I am not sure if the volume you get there is also just volume ranges if you do not have an active AdWords account.. Still, keep in mind searching google will become your biggest issue when you want to query 100 keywords in the fastest time possible...

 

[MKSKS]

This is great OP - really helpful for creating scores on the cheap.

It's easy to search google for the top 10 and then perform the calculation, (I use the api approach mentioned by @theRevolt - another thanks). The only thing I want know is to how to get the search volume/CPC.

Does anyone know how to get search volume/CPC without having to apply to the long winded API approval process for Google Keyword Planner? Preferably for free or very cheaply.

You can get the search volume and cpc for free using keywordseverywhere.

 

[puneetas3]

Thanks for the guide. I need to check keyword difficulty in bulk, say for 10K keywords at once. So far, I have reverse engineered keywordseverywhere extension, so I can have Volume, CPC and competition (adwords) (global, US, UK, AU, IN, NZ etc.) for any number of keywords. I have also reverse engineered Moz toolbar extension. So now I can have DA and PA of any page link.

Its easy for me to scrape top 10 results of google for any keyword (quite experienced in scraping). However, the problem is in calculation of competition. You have ignored mR and mT, while I want to include them. The moz toolbar doesn't have mR and mT and OSE is going to be closed by 30th August.

I have statistical data (210 datasets, regression done in SPSS) that clearly suggests that mR and mT is needed. If anyone can give some lead about getting mR, mT (ofcourse by not paying to moz) it will be great. Hope to make some tool for my personal use and release to BHW too.