Surely the adwords keyword tool is a liar

Okay, I have been messing with keyword research over the past day or so. I've found some good keywords, but I've noticed some things.

First of all, the value they return for a keyword is one out of like only 20 values. I always see numbers like 8,100 and 12,200 and 22,400, but never 8,200 or 12,300 or 22,500. They give the same values over and over!

Another thing, type in "homebrew wii". You'll see it gets an average of 246,000 searches per month. No Way! There is no way that is true. Besides, for the month of April, it doesn't have enough data (ie hardly any searches)

How am I supposed to know what to believe?

246k searches for Homebrew Wii doesn't sound too unbelievable. Are you thinking too low or too high?

"not enough data" does not always mean no searches. But adwords keyword tool is generally unreliable. I have heard of people getting to no1 in their niche - which the tool had told them got 40,000 searches/month - and getting nothing (although that is an extreme example)

Adwords keyword tool can point you in the right direction but you can never fully trust it.

Try using the adwords traffic estimator (google it). It will give you an idea of how many daily clicks are expected for a given keyword.

Also check out the google trend tool...i think theres a download here somewhere...seems to be pretty accurate.

Im pretty damm sure that is accurate, keep in mind there are billions using the internet, not too unrealistic when you consider that. plus the wii is super popular.

Market Samurai always gives WAY lower search results.
For a keyword google says gets 50 thousand searches, Market Samurai says maybe around 5 thousand.

I don't know where Market Samurai gets their data, i've only just begun using it.

Yeah, they're always the same values, but that doesn't mean it's lying. Sure, it can be pretty innacurate (that's another story), but they're just approximating searches to a set of fixed numbers, it actually makes sense if you really think about it.

I've heard that the right number of searches is often somewhere in between what the adwords tool gives you and market samurai.

I mean common, this adwords tool never gives you too low numbers, but it sure can give you much higher than realistic ones.

The thing is that no one really knows except the search engines themselves. Just because a term gets search for 20k times per month, it doesn't mean you will get even half of those visiting your page even if you are number 1. You have to take into account the tite of your page and its description as well as your domain name and think if it is exactly what the searcher is looking for. Result #8 might be more relevant.

For example, someone searching for "homebrew wii" might be looking at buying it, reviews for it, talking about it, games for it etc etc. You will only hit a % of the searches. Other searchers will use a more refined search phrase and these are easier to target. "how to install homebrew wii" will be easier to target and will giuve you a more accurate search per month figure...but please remember, #1 doesn't mean you will get the traffic.

Market Samurai won't know any more than what the search engines provide them and they will just be doing their own algorithm on this data to provide a realistic hit rate.

Many people have mentioned before that the best way to see what traffic you will get is by running an Adwords campaign.

Google only shows its estimate. I think Google keyword tool is more trusted than other tools.

I've also used adwords to make sure that keywords are getting searched.

@ricarte, are you doing that for all keywords, or just longtail stuff?

Adwords keyword tool, like any other keyword tool, is exactly that - a tool. It is not 100% perfect, but it will help you get a better idea of what keywords to target within your SEO and PPC campaigns alike.

With that said, it is a tool from Google, and I like anything straight from Google labs because that's exactly who I am going after.

Keywords and keyword research are a never ending process. The only way to know what keywords are going to do well for you is to o your initial research, select your keywords, and then start testing and tracking. After you get results, you need to tweak your campaigns based in those results.

Then repeat.

Yeah I was guessing that was way too high, especially since I had never heard of the term before. But then again, I haven't made a dime from anything CPA, but that's why I posted my concern in here.

I did end up making a site for that keyword, though, on some free website site- looks pretty crappy, but i linked to it via an ezinearticle and hubpage. We'll see how it goes, but it's looking like this keyword is scrapped just like the other ones I've tried.

homebrew wii is super popular right now, a bunch of good selling cb products built around it.

If you search for the exact match and make sure you geotarget the results they are a good indication, obviously there are going to be months when the amount of traffic is higher and lower than the average, also you have to consider the CTR on the ads, people may rank number 1 but they may have a really bad CTR if the title is just optimised for SEO...