Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture and Wordtracker, Part 1

Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By
Overture and Wordtracker
...because your online success depends on getting accurate
keyword counts!
Part 1

- by Robin Nobles

The root of all success in search engine marketing begins with
keywords. Period. Get them wrong and virtually everything about
your online endeavor will fail. Only by targeting the right
keywords can one expect to ride that exhilarating magic carpet to
online prosperity.

Stating the obvious you say? ...well, if so, then why is it that
virtually everyone - professional and amateur alike - is
oblivious to the fact they are selecting, and frequently buying,
keywords based on highly skewed numbers?

The fact is that very few online marketers understand the results
supplied by the two most basic keyword selection tools. These are
the very same tools being used globally to hone keyword choices
into supposedly laser sharp focus in an effort to keep pace with
the challenges of increasingly keen competition and ever-rising
keyword pay-per-click costs.

The critical differences — Overture's STST vs. Wordtracker's KSS

As one of Wordtracker's technical support team
(http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html), one of the most
frequent questions we receive these days is...

Why are the keyword search query numbers supplied by Overture's
search term suggestion tool (STST) so incredibly different than
those supplied by Wordtracker's keyword selection service (KSS)?

Frankly, there isn't a better search engine related question one
could ask. And, now's a good time to pay close attention because
the surprising answer will likely change forever how you evaluate
keywords!

First: Understanding Their Motives.

To help you understand the details we're about to reveal, let's
examine the motives of the services that are providing the
keyword query numbers.

Motive Analysis: Purpose

On the one hand, there's Overture's STST whose purpose is to help
customers buy keywords.

On the other hand, there's Wordtracker whose purpose is to help
customers select keywords.


Proposal:

Overture's STST suggests what keywords to buy from them.

Wordtracker suggests what keywords to use in your optimization
efforts and/or which to buy elsewhere.


Success:

Overture's success depends on you believing there are LOTS of
search queries for whatever you are selling.

Wordtracker's success depends on you getting accurate numbers
upon which you can reliably base your optimization and keyword
purchase decisions.


Profits:

Overture's STST is free. Overture profits by selling you the
keywords that STST reports on.

Wordtracker's KSS is fee based. They profit by selling you access
to accurate and impartial information. Since they don't sell the
keywords, there's no vested interest in query numbers beyond
accuracy.


It's important to note there is no good-guy, bad-guy here - just
two companies that provide information and do so with different
incentives in mind.

Second: Understanding The Artificial Skew.

In researching the search term "keyword," Overture's STST
indicates there were 180,468 searches for the 30-day period
ending the last day of December '03. Of course, when we divide
this number by 30 (days), one naturally assumes that's an average
of 6,016 combined searches per day for the term keyword -
(180,468/30=6016).

Now, if you happen to be in a business that sells keywords (like
Overture) then 6,016 pairs of eyeballs per day is a pretty
encouraging number indeed! The problem is, there isn't anywhere
even close to 6,016 per-day queries for the search term(s)
keyword(s). In fact, the actual number, which we'll share with
you in a minute, will no-doubt shock you!

But, for the moment, let's look at why that number is skewed.

Reason #1 — Artificial Searches

Overture's STST numbers are increased upward by automated
queries. These include automated bid optimizers, position and
ranking monitors, page popularity analyzers - anything other than
a real person manually performing a search is considered an
automated query. Monitoring a site's positioning at, say,
AltaVista for the search term "keyword" tallies a "hit" within
Overture's STST system for that search term. That's in spite of
the fact that it was actually automated software that generated
the hit. The same holds true for page-popularity checkers, pay-
per-click bid optimizers or any other machine generated monitor
or tabulator that queries an engine for a "pet" keyword and
generates a hit in the process.

Then, when the same positioning query is done at, say, MSN
(another Overture partner), STST records yet another hit.
Understandably, STST cannot differentiate between automated and
human queries. Neither can they tell when the auto-query has
already been queried at another partner's site.

Now, when we take into consideration all of the position
monitoring, page popularity checking and pay-per-click bid
analyzing - there are well over 15 automated and semi-automated
bid checking software programs alone - it's staggering to realize
the significant effect these automated queries are having on the
overall search term query tabulations.

However, artificial searches are only one aspect contributing to
the artificial skew (defined as: the inflation of actual search
queries for specific keywords performed by anything other than
humans).

(Continued in Part 2. Contact Robin@SearchEngineWorkshops.com for
the complete article.)