Thread: Beware: Misleading Keyword Analysis Tools

Use caution when checking on the frequency of potential keywords for your web site. Most KW research tools only show a snapshot of data obtained over a relatively short time frame (i.e. one month). You should keep a spreadsheet or log of estimated keyword searches each month to not only track your current optimized KW set, but also to uncover new potential KW targets.

One-month snapshot data can be greatly distorted by:

- Seasonality
- Other SEO/webmasters frequently checking rankings (especially automated queries).

For example, while researching a market in eastern PA I found that 7 nearby towns had the same exact amount of Overture queries per day on the phrases:

(town) real estate
(town) realtor
(town) new homes
(town) condos
(town) homes for sale

Most likely, this is because someone involved in that market was frequently checking rankings in these terciary towns.

When you begin tracking over many months, don't get too excited if all of a sudden a few new real estate related phrases pop up with 50-100 searches per day. In fact, don't jump on the optimization bandwagon for these phrases. Chances are it is someone else in your market running automated queries on these phrases. If these same "new" phrases keep showing up month after month in varying amounts, then you can try optimizing for one or two of those words.

Imagine if the first time you checked KW's in your market the most popular phrase that you saw was mytown new homes for sale and you started building tons of links and tried to optimize for that phrase, only to find out that it was a one month anomaly because someone is running automated queries!

Be smart and aware when choosing to optimize for phrases.

I've noticed a very similar issue on Overture. For example, one month it listed 70,000 searches for a search term, the next month , 236,000. ??

The other thing I've noticed is the plural version of words on overture. I think they combine totals of plural searches and singular.

Also, Googles keyword tool doesn't seem to correlate with overtures results.

These tools are helpful but I don't know how accurate.

best option i had is "keyword selector tool" of digitalpoint.com