Okay I posted this thread previous and I guess I was murky in my question so I've brought pictures this time to clear the air. when conducting my keyword research on a "keyword" I see that Google results results from the first page as something like 180,000 pages of competing sites but.....if you navigate all the way to the last page of search results it turns out that they is only about 15 pages of actual search volume....sooooo.....do i trust the first page of search results and say okay...180,000 is a twee to much competition or do i say..okay 15 pages of search results sign me up?? So confused on the issue...below are the screen shots I took for my example. Thanks to anyone that can help me defuse the question. http://img526.imageshack.us/i/searchresults.jpg/
Are you referring to the fact that Google says in the top right corner there are 180K results but only links to the first 15 or so pages of results at the bottom of the page? Unfortunately, the image host you're using is being blocked by Websense at work so I can't see the image... Why on earth would you think that Google would provide you a link to 18,000 different pages of 10 results each? Who in their right mind (other than an ultra obsessed SEO) would EVER look farther back than the first 2-5 pages of results? Yes there ARE 180,000 results even though they only link to the first 15 pages or so... NOTE: Just because there are 180,000 results does NOT mean there are 180,000 URLs competing for that keyword phrase. That is a VERY poor measure of the competitiveness of the keyword phrase. You should be trying to determine how many URLs have exactly that keyword phrase in the content... how many URLs have both that exact phrase in the content AND in the title... how many have that exact phrase in the content AND the URL... how many have that exact phrase in the title AND the URL... For example, try searching for: "my keyword phrase" "my keyword phrase" intitle:"my keyword phrase" "my keyword phrase" inurul:"my keyword phrase" intitle:"my keyword phrase" inurl:"my keyword phrase" "my keyword phrase" intitle:"my keyword phrase" inurl:"my keyword phrase" Those are MUCH better measures of how competitive that keyword phrase is.