Search Engine War Blog : « How Accurate is the Google Keyword Tool’s Volume Estimates? | Bleeding vacant... »

Google Keyword Tool Accuracy - Update

Wednesday, 06 August 2008

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the accuracy of the Google keyword tool. July’s figures are now available in the Keyword Tool, so I decided to run the same set of ‘100% impression share’ keywords through to see if there was any change in the accuracy demonstrated last month.

Once they have been rounded to one of Google’s established reporting integers (see my previous post), we get the following results: 

                                                                                         
 

Keyword

 

Actual   Impressions July 08

 

KW   Tool 'Approx Search Volume: July'

 

Difference   from actual

 

June   Difference

 

Generic   Keyword A

 

60500

 
 

18100

 
 

234%

 
 

125%

 
 

Generic   Keyword B

 

40500

 
 

33100

 
 

22%

 
 

22%

 
 

Generic   Brand A

 

22200

 
 

14800

 
 

50%

 
 

83%

 
 

Generic   Brand B

 

9900

 
 

6600

 
 

50%

 
 

0%

 
 

Generic   Brand C

 

9900

 
 

9900

 
 

0%

 
 

0%

 
 

Niche   Brand A

 

2400

 
 

1900

 
 

26%

 
 

50%

 
 

Niche   Brand B

 

1900

 
 

1300

 
 

46%

 
 

46%

 
 

Niche   Brand C

 

1000

 
 

880

 
 

14%

 
 

39%

 

So, three of the differences are the same (although ‘Generic Brand C’, which was correct last month, actually increased both its actual impressions and its KWTool result, changing figures but remaining correct) and three of the results are closer to the true value than they were last month. Two of the results are worse – one of them was actually correct last month but has increased impressions whilst the reported value decreased, and one of them was the most inaccurate anyway, and the KWTool value has just moved further in the wrong direction.

Because of the even larger difference in Generic KeyWord A’s figures, overall numerical variation has actually increased, despite a greater number of results being more accurate.

The ‘average search volume’ remained the same in all but one case - Generic Brand C, which increased to match the July, and ‘real’ figure. It’ll be interesting to see the accuracy of the ‘averages’ after a longer test period.

If anyone has any thoughts on this, or has drawn any conclusuions with the help of this data, I’d be very interested to hear them.

Comments

Jeremy

Matt, I ran a similar test when they first started sharing the data.

http://www.ppcdiscussions.com/2008/07/how-accurate-is-adwords-keyword-tool.html

Hosting plans 4 all

could it be because of different data centres that are queried or actual increase or decrease in serach volume?

John

When you set up your Adword campaign to test the impressions on the keywords you used above, did you run the ads over the content network or was is just on the Google's search engine . Popular opinion is that the search volumes shown on the keyword tool include the searches on the content network

John

Thanks for this wonderful info! I have learned SEO from the great bloggers such like you. I thank you always for such great post and that comes from the sole of my heart. Just as you always help i would alywas help you by telling my secrets. I use a free keyword tool from serp analytics and it can be found out here http://www.serpanalytics.com/tools/top_keywords..it is a good and not such like Google and yahoo which are showing some broad results..I have been using this from past one year and thought to share it through my comments.

:)

Post a comment

If you have a TypeKey or TypePad account, please Sign In.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451c37d69e200e553d19d778833

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Google Keyword Tool Accuracy - Update:

Subscribe to this blog's feed

Add to My Yahoo!
Subscribe with Bloglines
Add to Google
Subscribe in NewsGator Online

Add to My AOL
Add to Technorati Favorites!
Add to netvibes