Keyword Suggestion Tools - are they REALLY accurate?

[! !]

The Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool
&
The Google Sandbox

Sometimes it is difficult to access whether a number predominantly represents TRUE searches or Webmasters/SEOs checking their rankings
(eg. "search engine optimization") :confused:

One possible help would be to have another number that repesents SERPs that a surfer CLICKED on a Web page.

Wordtracker may give SOME indication of relatively TRUE results - but the can not distinuish in their estimation what KEYWORD TERMs are likely to be search in on one search engine than another.


THERE IS possibly a difference in GOOGLE than AOL or MSN or YAHOO searchers in terms of their complexity and type of search queries.

[nacho45]

In my experience, it's been all over the map for the estimated traffic.

Some have been extremely accurate, some not quite.

I'd use it as a rough indicator, but don't bank on it being 100% correct, you might be disappointed.

[skattabrain]

i swear a couple of the terms i search for are hotter than should be because seo's bang on them all day long.

[Chatmaster]

I rather use these terms to give me ideas for keywords and then target the keywords that makes sense to me and that will get me the most targetted visitors. I have to agree these tools do not give a true rpesentation of Google's terms but surely it must give you some guideline for Yahoo.

[Touchdown]

I've had pretty good luck using a variety of different ones. Never rely on just one of them

[skattabrain]

agreed on that, how many do you usually focus on?

[mxlabs]

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/?keywords=proxy

if you use digitalpoint's keyword suggestion tool based on wordtracker you'll see "free proxy clicker download" coming up with over 1600 searches per day, even in front of "proxy". just one example that some numbers are way off.

[compar]

I'm surprised that no one has seen this three part article on this subject. In fact only the first two parts have been published. Have a look starting here. http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2004/jul/12.html