Do any of your guys use wordtracker? I found out that it gets results from Dogpile and WebCrawler search engines. What is the popularity proportion of dogpile and webcrawler compared to google and yahoo? Are there any statistical sitest that you can recommend?
I found an answer to my own question right here Wordtracker gets its data from metacrawler search engine. A metacrawler search engine is one that queries several of the main search engines to compile its own results e.g. Google, Yahoo and Altavista may all be queried when you run a search at Dogpile, and Dogpile will collate those results and output what it considers the best sites from those three engines. Whenever a search is made at either of these two metacrawlers, the search term is recorded in the Wordtracker database. Over 175 million searches are recorded every month in this way, and all are stored in Word tracker's database. This massive amount of data is then made available to subscribers of Wordtracker.
I am using it and i believe it is a good tool finding keywords that you may have not thought of. But for the popularity of keywords, i use google adwords in combination with wordtracker. Don't solely trust wordtracker.
Using a good keyword tool like Wordtracker is a must for good SEO. In the first year or two of my website, I was just using the keywords that to my thinking seemed to be the best and most relevant. But when I discovered some good keyword tools and made appropriate changes in the KWs I targeted, the search results skyrocketed quickly. Sometimes I found I was targeting KWs that only received a few daily searches on the internet. Then by using these keyword tools, I discovered synonyms for those keywords that were drawing hundreds of daily searches. Some simple editing and rewriting of copy, using these more popular KWs, brought amazing results.
I also use Microsoft AdCenter keyword tool. Wordtracker free tool is great. Dont forget that the numbers represent daily searches. Paid tool has forecast for keywords
Wordtracker uses meta search engines like dogpile. Reason is that in Google & Yahoo there are lot of artificial queries by seo's , search engine ranking softwares and ppc bid management tools. So, overture or google's keyword suggestion tools will give you an inflated search queries. Meta search engines give 0.86% of total search volume. Wordtracker uses this formula to give you a "predicted search". pl note that meta crawlers are free from artificial/automated queries. But it has several drawbacks. Meta crawlers are not popular in certain countries like India. You may get a wrong picture in case you are doing a keyword research for India related keywords..
Google trends is also useful in comparing the popularity of different keywords. www.google.com/trends
The daily searches shown in the free wordtracker tool http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ takes the marketshare of of dogpile and webcrawler into consideration
you can also use http://labs.google.com/suggest tool, as you type the keyword in search box, it will display you different related queries which people use to search.
The value of Wordtracker or other tools' results is not so much how accurate their absolute numbers are. They offer great value in comparing one keyword with another. You may be considering targeting "keyword A". Then you check with a keyword suggestion tool and discover that "keyword B" draws X times the number of daily searches as "Keyword A". Etc., etc., for additional keywords. That allows you to make an informed choice of keywords to target, factoring in how competitive each one is, how relevant to your website, and so forth.