Why are single words searched most in google in comparison to multiple keywords? For example, according to the google adwords keyword tool, the word 'game' is, on average, searched 20,400,000 times a month. Why would anyone search the word 'game' as a search term? Surely that would just give you a list of websites that have the word 'game' in them so the chances of you finding whatever aspect of 'games' you are looking for is highly unlikely? If someone could explain this to me that would be great
I've had trouble with this recently - commercial sites seem to do better for plurals (e.g games) than singular which focuses more on news and info sites...
It sounds like you might have 'broad match' selected. When I check Google's keyword tool for 'game' I get 823,000 monthly searches. So your totals include every phrase that includes that word. The people doing these 1 word searches are likely uneducated internet users who do not know how search engines work. It only makes sense to them to just type 'game' to find some game to play online.
Place yourself on newbie or amateur searchers, in your example keyword "game", what would a 7 year old child would type searching for a game?
single word keywords always have more search volume than long tail or double/triple word keywords. And its really hard to rank well for some of them.
Don't forget...not everyone is trained or knowledgeable in the search engine game. Most probably those who know how to refine their search using specific keywords are basically just a small fraction of the web community.