Google has a keyword tool available at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Is this reliable? I've seen this over and over, but here is one example. If you type in the word ripped into the tool, it says that there were about 301,000 searches in August for this term. If you go to Google and search on ripped, the first entry is rippedabs.net You would think the bulk of the hits from google would go to rippedabs.net, but if you look it up on Alexa, Compete and a few of the other sites that reveal traffic patterns, you'll see rippedabs.net gets next to no traffic. This isn't the only example, there are so many. I guess I'm just wondering, are those keyword search counts from Google on their tool accurate or are they way off?
Did you search for [ripped] or ripped? If you enclose the search phrases in brackets, you get the number of searches that included that exact phrase, otherwise you get the broad match which returns the number of searches in which the word "ripped" occured. ie. phrases such as "ripped off" will be included. And then remember that the figures are still estimates