SEO Keyword Services: Where Do They Get The Numbers?
Noticing that there can be large disparities in the results among the various keyword discovery tools led to an interesting and useful discovery. It certainly wasn’t all that obvious, and we had to do the math do get there. Topics are: Disclosures And Assumptions; Moving Forward; and An Expanding Universe
It’s a given that anyone and everyone who wants a self-sustaining online presence needs to do search engine optimization and marketing. The main way of achieving this is through keywords, and there are a number of tools, both directly owned desktop versions and web based services, used to discover, organize and manage them. Some of the web based tools are free, while others use a subscription model, in either case worth what you pay for them in varying degrees. In any case, having one or more of these tools is absolutely essential. In working with several of them recently, we noticed that the disparity among the tools’ numbers were not even remotely close. So, where do they get the numbers?
Disclosures And Assumptions
Each of the keyword finder tools describes how they get their numbers. Some are very up front and detailed, while others are variously less so. None of them claim to be looking directly at the query input streams that, say, google is getting. Some admit to crawlers that look at the keywords declared in web page meta tags to establish libraries, and from that the number can be calculated, although how accurately is another matter entirely. Others have proxies of various kinds from which keywords and their occurrences are determined in indirect ways. Needless to say, only the search engines internally ‘know’ what keywords are being submitted, and the frequency with which they are being used. From the outside looking in, anything can at best be a guess. Some of the keyword finder tools that do are, amazingly, pretty good.
Moving Forward
All of us have to pay our money and take our chances, and in choosing a keyword finder tool at least, a bit of faith may sometimes be necessary to get started: Somehow it works, details not forthcoming and in any event really complicated. In time, the results validate the choices, and reputations are made and maintained. It seems to have something to do with the sheer complexity of the internet as an information repository.
An Expanding Universe
I’m sure we’re not the only ones who have noticed that the keyword universe, like the real one, is expanding. This suggests several consequences that are immediate and practical, at least so far as SEO activity is concerned. Perhaps the main consequence is that, regardless of the disparity among the numbers that the various keyword finder tools report, the effective results will become statistically more accurate, something related to the Law Of Large Numbers so popular in certain circles at the end of the 19th century. And that will keep us busy for a while, with less time to wonder about where the numbers actually come from.�