For the last two months I have been busily looking for a single tool to replace the past capabilities that Overture gave to every search marketer; namely, an almost accurate representation of monthly search volume. Granted, there were always flaws in the system; for instance, automated searches were impossible to take out of the volume results, as well, Yahoo! always accepted a certain level of plurality and synonyms as a single count, unlike any of the other search engines – ( “market” and “markets” were the same word, “auto” and “car” were the same word). But even though there were flaws, I could still drum up a few calculations and plug them into a spreadsheet and get a fairly accurate representation of search volume in Google, Yahoo! and MSN. I even tested my stats against open budget PPC volumes and they were usually within a 95% confidence level – I could live with that.
Then Panama screwed me, not like Noriega and the blasting of Van Halen kind of screwed, but Yahoo! took away my ability to fake an account set-up and get search volume for 40 terms – making it time effective to run a complete and robust keyword analysis. I can’t lie and cheat my way into accurate forecasting anymore. So I went out looking for a tool, no matter the expense, to give me back my forecasting abilities… and on the recommendation of a lot of people that I respect; namely, Andy Beal and Chris Sherman, I forked over some cash for Keyword Discovery.
After 2 days, I realized I had made a big mistake!
The thing is, most keyword tools in the past had been built on APIs that pulled the same data from Overture. However, the software automated what I had done in a spreadsheet, so I never felt the need to pay somebody for something that really only saved me 5 minutes – the cost/benefit wasn’t ever there.
I had once paid for WordTracker, which pulls data off of metacrawlers, but I was never happy with the results because it wasn’t ever entirely reflective of the mass consumer Internet, simply because the data it pulled was from back door engines and avenues that were not used by the mass populous. I found myself trying to quantify e-commerce keyword choices, and WordTracker never really provided me with results I was confident in – especially when I compared it to what Overture was giving out. All too often I had more than a 50% discrepancy, which would not have made my clients happy (giving them a list of keywords with a 50% or less confidence rate – I might as well have flipped a coin).
… So in my moment of need, I swallowed my pride, listened to some pros, and forked over $50 for Keyword Discovery. Everybody was saying “Keyword Discovery, which has been available to search marketers for several years, and while I’ve used it before, recent enhancements warranted taking a second look.“… ummm, no!
It’s more than money; it’s unreliable!
Keyword Discovery is an online keyword analysis tool. From all looks and appearances it is striving to compete with the ever popular Wordtracker. For $10, a user can sign up for a one day trial. This is $2.50 more than Wordtracker; and a Keyword Discovery search covers a larger set of databases than Wordtracker, but the results are so incongruent. 9 out of 10 times, the search volume results had more than a 700% variation (on the low side in KeywordDiscovery). When I compared the results to Yahoo! or open PPC numbers, there was an over 900% variation. Basically, KeywordDiscovery has flawed results – the problem is that because the numbers are so low, people may miss some real opportunities by taking the numbers as anything close to Gospel.
As well, the search functionality of Keyword Discovery is awkward and confusing, in as much as the results are unreliable. The result set initially returns possible related keywords with the number of searches. Users can click the check box next to the keywords and click the Analyze button to provide additional analysis. The analysis phase returns additional related keywords with three additional columns of information: Occurrences (number of pages on which those terms appear i.e. competition), KEI (keyword effectiveness index) this is the same formula that Wordtracker uses, and Predicted Daily (number of potential searches of that word a day). All of this information is free on Nichebot.
Try giving me a real opportunity!
One cool feature was the seasonality charts, which trend search volume for the past 12 months; whereas WordTracker would only give 2 months and Overture just one.
But the data is so unreliable that the seasonality charts are nothing more than a pretty graph. (AdLabs has better tools and theirs are free.) My favorite gripe, I tried the KD tool to generate relevant searches for “car insurance” and got “car”, “insurance” (glad I paid $50 for that level of insight), “Gieco” (don’t even want to try and optimize my client for that word), “lizard”, “girls, girls, girls”, and “giggle”. Although I know “girls, girls, girls” will get my client more traffic, I can guarantee it will not be qualified.
So in the end – I am still searching for a better Keyword tool. I’m sure they are out there, but I just keep finding bigger flaws in every one I look at. Trust me, who is $50 lighter, and look somewhere other than Trellian.
