Google is just taking the piss now

[stung]

Today I found that my site is ranking #1 for a keyword, which according to Google's keyword tool gets 14,800 searches a month. But I'm getting 150 a month in visitors. Now I know, my site may not have an attractive description, Google may be a bit optimistic with its numbers, but 100 TIMES AS MUCH!! I mean come on! What the F#@$!

Then, I figure I'll check the searches in Google's adwords tool. Except the language won't change when I tell it to and it comes up with nothing, as in "nothing", not even a result saying "not enough searches per month". And then when I try to search for just one keyword it forces all these suggestions on me for adwords, well what if I just want that f#@$^% keyword ON ITS OWN!!!

I give up with Google, they've lost it completely. I'll leave my sites ranking and move on to something else. F#%**& freaks.

 

[stung]

I mean, what's the point of even using their fcking keyword tool anymore if it's so completely wrong?! I have Market Samurai, and I guess that's a complete waste of time for keyword research too now.

Does anyone have an alternative that works?

 

[Fwiffo]

From the hours (days? months?) of my life I've spent making mistakes in this industry, I'd say 2 possibilities:

1) Your keyword / phrase is a "regional term"

I've had a few that had great traffic numbers, but those numbers were restricted to a specific geographic area (ie I'd imagine that "taking the piss" is a term that is googled much more in the UK than in the US)

So you could be ranking #1 in the US for a term like "taking the piss", and be seeing 1% of the traffic compared with someone ranking #10 in the UK for "taking the piss" and therefore not seeing that traffic

2) You could be looking at broad instead of exact traffic numbers

Google's keyword tool defaults to "broad" traffic numbers - any mention of that word gets included in those numbers

You need to check exact as well - some keywords look great for "broad" and "phrase" numbers but absolutely nothing for "exact"

Example:

if "cheap coupons" were to have 1,000 searches a day (broad), and "cheap coupons for safeway" were to have 100 searches a day the 100 searches a day (broad) for the 2nd term would be included in the 1000 searches a day for the first one.

The total searches for a term like "coupons for cheap food" would also be included in the "broad" search volume for 1st term

There are many occasions where the broad traffic for a term looks amazing, however the exact traffic is near 0

All this learned from hours spent making personal mistakes

Hope it helps

 

[J0kerz]

Almost every tools out there are gathering their result from Google Adword tool...

 

[GloCk99]

Or it could be something simple like a personalised search.

Use firefox or i.e. in private browsing and then search for you keyword, unless of course you're using a tracking tool then ignore the above

 

[Thenayr]

Chances are you have no idea how any of those tools work.

 

[stung]

Thank you...I think your suggestion about the exact matches is what the problem was.

Just a couple of things that are bugging me though:

A broad match means that the word order could be changed around in the search, e.g.

"buy chocolate online" could become "online buy chocolate" etc, but does it also include adding in things like "buy chocolate online london" and so on?

Because the phrase match does include that right? Adding on words to the specific phrase I mean.

And the other thing is: Let's say my keyword was "cartoons online" and I was getting 14,800 searches under broad match. Now I get 2,000 under exact match. Those missing 12,600 searches are taken up by...? "online cartoons"?

I think I will stick to exact match until I understand this better.

From the hours (days? months?) of my life I've spent making mistakes in this industry, I'd say 2 possibilities:

1) Your keyword / phrase is a "regional term"

I've had a few that had great traffic numbers, but those numbers were restricted to a specific geographic area (ie I'd imagine that "taking the piss" is a term that is googled much more in the UK than in the US)

So you could be ranking #1 in the US for a term like "taking the piss", and be seeing 1% of the traffic compared with someone ranking #10 in the UK for "taking the piss" and therefore not seeing that traffic

2) You could be looking at broad instead of exact traffic numbers

Google's keyword tool defaults to "broad" traffic numbers - any mention of that word gets included in those numbers

You need to check exact as well - some keywords look great for "broad" and "phrase" numbers but absolutely nothing for "exact"

Example:

if "cheap coupons" were to have 1,000 searches a day (broad), and "cheap coupons for safeway" were to have 100 searches a day the 100 searches a day (broad) for the 2nd term would be included in the 1000 searches a day for the first one.

The total searches for a term like "coupons for cheap food" would also be included in the "broad" search volume for 1st term

There are many occasions where the broad traffic for a term looks amazing, however the exact traffic is near 0

All this learned from hours spent making personal mistakes

Hope it helps

 

[stung]

Why does someone always have to make a smartass comment as if we're still in the school playground. Can't you just shut up if you have nothing useful to say? The other guys here have really helped me and to them I am thankful. Please just go away.

Chances are you have no idea how any of those tools work.

 

[JunglePocket]

Fucking Google. They obviously have the information to provide data with pinpoint accuracy, yet they inflate their stupid keyword stats to lure people into using Adwords.

 

[stung]

Lol, I know I know, they do inflate it I'm sure. In this case it was me not understanding it properly but thanks to Fwiffo I do now.

 

[stung]

Oh and this bit of Google also helped a lot:

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106754

 

[theconfidenceman]

yes broad and exact make a difference. also remember g serves up different results depending on data center and geo location of the browser making the search. so that also effects the hits you will get.

 

[Fwiffo]

A broad match means that the word order could be changed around in the search, e.g.

"buy chocolate online" could become "online buy chocolate" etc, but does it also include adding in things like "buy chocolate online london" and so on?

Because the phrase match does include that right? Adding on words to the specific phrase I mean.

And the other thing is: Let's say my keyword was "cartoons online" and I was getting 14,800 searches under broad match. Now I get 2,000 under exact match. Those missing 12,600 searches are taken up by...? "online cartoons"?

things like

online cartoons flintsontes and jetsons
watch smurf cartoons online
funniest cartoons rated on the online web
online horse betting cartoons
cartoons in dallas tv guide onilne
online website that has cartoons intro
mario brothers cartoons online
should my children be allowed online to watch cartoons?

Broad: any mention of all of the terms in one search (so words could be rearranged, or in completely different order, or completely spaced apart)

Phrase: any mention of that specific phrase (like if you do a "search with quotations" in google)

Exact: ONLY that term

There's more on the google keyword tool help section. I think Market Samurai has a video specifically on it in their training dojo as well.

 

[stung]

Yep, definitely getting it now. Last question is, according to google if my keyword was "purple flowers" they would even consider "pink flowers" to be a broad match!! So they change it that much? Not a problem, just interesting.

 

[peter2002]

Please be aware that the numbers (whatever they might be) in the Google keyword search tool are always the total for the keyword. You won't get all the visitors but only a certain percentage of them.

 

[stung]

Thanks peter, I was going on the assumption of 80% visiting my site if I'm number 1...does that sound about right?

 

[Fwiffo]

I was going on the assumption of 80% visiting my site if I'm number 1...does that sound about right?

I (personally) budget for:

1st rank 50%
2nd rank 25%
3rd rank 12%
4th rank 6%
5th rank 3%
6th-10 0.5-2%

Keep in mind that you will likely pick up additional traffic from other long tail keywords derived from that term.

From my (personal) experience, real numbers are probably more, however I prefer to budget conservatively and aim to have more lucrative projects

 

[Fwiffo]

Last question is, according to google if my keyword was "purple flowers" they would even consider "pink flowers" to be a broad match!!

Wasn't aware of this (mostly just use exact myself), but makes sense

Read up on "Latent Semantic Indexing" (LSI) (start with Google / Wikipedia)

That's probably you're best starting point - there's a lot there but - "common SEO theory" says that search has been / is moving more this way

 

[metabaron]

SpyFu is also a good tool to check this out. I think it gives a very pessimistic view as far as terms go, but it's actually rather accurate. At least it was for me.

 

[yahooposter1]

Oh and this bit of Google also helped a lot:

http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106754

nice share dude