Sometimes our best data sources aren't exactly up to par. While nearly every search marketer will rely on Google Keyword Planner data at one point or another, especially while doing keyword research, the reality is that the data is often untrustworthy and should be viewed with great skepticism. Whether you plan to use it to help build a paid search campaign or determine which content to write, there are huge caveats to the numbers presented as Average Search Volume. Today, I want to walk through a number of the "gotchas" in Google Keyword Planner data so you can do better keyword research and make smarter decisions for you or your clients' sites.
Dirty secret #1: Rounded averages
By far, the most-used piece of data from Google Keyword Planner is the "Average Monthly Search Volume" metric. This key data point is used in everything from basic decisions on what keywords to use in an ad campaign to complex traffic prediction curves. But can we trust it?
Suppose you run a sports website and two keywords pop up in the recommendations: baseball scores and basketball games. Google Keyword Planner lets us know that each of these keywords has an Average Monthly Search Volume of 201,000. At first glance, you should be able to choose either of these keywords and expect similar traffic results, right?
Wrong. The "Average Monthly Search Volume" is more than just an average; it's rounded to the nearest-volume-bucket (which I will describe later). We know this is the case because Google Keyword Planner also exposes the last 12 months of traffic data. If we average that data, we will see that baseball scores receives 217,275 visits per month, while basketball games averages only 205,750! That is a difference of over 10,000 searches per month, which is obscured by Google KWP's rounding algorithm.
When we took a sample of keywords at the 201,000 Average Monthly Search volume, the standard deviation was 14,621 in the "actual average." In some cases, it was off by over 40,000 monthly searches per month! If you don't look at the last 12 months of data, your annual traffic estimates will likely be off by tens of thousands of visits. What causes this anomaly?
Dirty secret #2: Traffic buckets
Google Keyword Planner uses "buckets" to group keywords by traffic volume. When a keyword returns a traffic volume of 201,000, it isn't because the keyword was actually visited that many times, or really that it was particularly close to the number 201,000, but just that it was closer to 201,000 than the next biggest bucket of 246,000. The next lower bucket is 165,000, which gives us a nice 80,000-searches-per-month wiggle room — within which a keyword might actually fall and still be categorized as 201,000 by Keyword Planner.
After analyzing a massive data set, we found that Google has around 85 different "buckets" for traffic, which are logarithmically proportioned. This means that long tail keywords might fall into buckets which only differ by 10–20 searches at a time, while head tail keywords might see gaps of hundreds of thousands of searches per month. The bigger the search volume, the less certain you can be about the accuracy of the Average Monthly Searches, especially relative to other terms that fall in the same group. In fact, the largest buckets have variances of of nearly a quarter million searches per month!
Google uses this rounding procedure for convenience and, likely, to take into account the real month-to-month variance which can be huge for these very popular terms.
Dirty secret #3: Hidden keywords
Rand had an excellent write up on this issue a while back if you want to read the full details or want a more in-depth look at the problem. However, I thought I'd just throw out some stats here to show you just how ridiculous the recommendation system can be relative to the reality of related words and phrases. Let's start with the phrase "football." In this example, we will start with using GrepWords data to find the most valuable words that contain "football" in them. Then, we simply ask Google what they recommend. How close do they match? What is missed?
The top 3 most-trafficked football-based keywords weren't recommended to us, and only 4 of Google's recommended made it into the top 10. In fact, when we analyzed dozens of Google keyword recommendation reports, we found that only 35% of the keywords were among the most trafficked terms.
It appears that Google Keyword Planner is simply trying to provide a diverse cross-section of terms, but for marketers it means you potentially miss out on huge opportunities unless you dig much deeper. You can battle back against this "feature" by choosing more short-tail terms to seed your searches and setting volume and CPC limits, as the recommendations get stronger and stronger the more specific you get. In the end, though, you're going to miss out on some great terms if you've restricted your research to only Google Keyword Planner.
Dirty secret #4: Combination inconsistencies
If you're like me and spelling isn't your forte, you have certainly seen Google give you the "showing results for {correct spelling}." This is very useful for the searcher, but throws a pretty big wrench into keyword volume metrics. What does Google do in these situations? Does it count all the traffic towards correctly spelled keyword (which is actually showing in the search results) or does it count the traffic toward the misspelling or variation? Well, it turns out it's a mixed bag. Let's take a look at a fairly popular term Texas A&M Football.
In the above picture we see several variations of how one might search for the concept Texas A&M Football.
| Keyword | Corrected? | Distinct Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Texas A&M Football | No | Yes |
| Texas A and M Football | No | Yes |
| Texas AM Football | Yes | Yes |
| Texas A & M Football | No | Yes |
| Texas A& M Football | Yes | Yes |
Notice that whether or not the keyword is mapped to the canonical spelling makes no difference, in this case, for the total search volume. Even though many keywords will show you Texas A&M results, Google's volume count is only for the correct spelling of the term.
Now here's where it starts to matter. Let's say that you run a site that sells football attire and you're deciding which schools to include. You look up Google's Keyword Planner data and see that "Texas A&M Football" and "FSU Football" are both searched 201,000 times a month. These keywords seem equal in terms of volume but, in reality, there are many more keywords that are mapped organically to the phrase "Texas A&M Football," which makes its combined search volume much higher. In this particular case, there are several thousand visitors a year that you might miss out on by choosing "FSU Football" over "Texas A&M Football" simply because Google doesn't combine the keywords in Keyword Planner despite doing so in organic search.
This might seem like a reasonable compromise. The Keyword Planner is giving you back the search counts for the keywords, regardless of whether those searches are redirected to a different phrase. This would be appropriate if it was consistent, but with certain punctuation in terms we see Google treat the case completely differently. Take the search terms facebook.com and facebook com. Google reports that both of these terms are searched 7.8 million times a month. Clearly these two variants are not searched an identical number of times; Google has simply mapped the keywords together BOTH in organic search results AND in volume. This forces keyword researchers to build huge keyword lists and go line-by-line removing the edge cases.
Here's a quick tip for you Excel experts out there: Look into using Jaro Winkler distance to find very similar terms that have identical search volume. Often these terms are mapped both in organic and in volume, and you can find those exclusions easily.
Dirty secret #5: Strange recommendations
Sometimes Google Keyword Planner gets the keyword recommendations completely wrong. Here are a couple of the examples that I was able to pull in just a few minutes of brainstorming:
| Starting Keyword | Recommended Keyword |
|---|---|
| baseball glove | boxing glove |
| pigeon | cabins |
| calamari | pork chops |
| rap | country music |
Because Google Keyword Planner uses more than just phrase matching to build their recommended keywords, you will regularly find some truly strange entries in your recommended keyword list, or connections that a computer might make but a human never would. Unfortunately, this means you have to be very careful about what you get back, going keyword by keyword if you want to start a paid search campaign based on what's been returned. You simply can't be confident in the relevancy of the results. Can you imagine how many webmasters just blindly added Google's recommendations to their advertising campaigns?
All is not lost
Luckily, there is more than one way to get at and improve the Keyword Planner data using clickstream data sources. Our own Keyword Explorer tool has around 95% accuracy with Google AdWords monthly keyword volume.
Our volume range was produced using sampling, trend data, and the number of searchers and searches for a given keyword from the clickstream, combined with AdWords' volume data.
We know of two other keyword data sources — ClickStre.am and SimilarWeb — which correlate nicely with Google Keyword Planner volumes.
While this data from SimilarWeb is very useful, building a more accurate prediction of search volume for a term requires that you build a regression model comparing the user data to Google's estimates. Moreover, demographic differences between the whole Google user base and those included in the user panels of SimilarWeb and ClickStre.am mean that building a ubiquitous regression model across all the keyword data might not be the best, as the users tracked by SimilarWeb and ClickStre.am might be biased towards different topics. The solution is to build models around topically-related keywords.
For example, instead of modeling all the keywords against one another, if Google Keyword Planner gave you 2 keywords on the same topic with the same keyword bucket (like 201,000 searches per month), you could build a regression model on the fly comparing a sample of topically-related keywords, using that to predict with greater granularity the performance of the two seemingly identical keywords.
While this user data helps you defeat issues of granularity, getting better (both more thorough and more accurate) recommendations for keywords can be a little more difficult. Your best bet here is to use keyword data aggregators like GREPWords, KeywordTool.io, or Moz Keyword Explorer.
Keyword Planner is dead. Long live Keyword Planner
Unfortunately, despite all of the strange quirks and outright deceptions of Google Keyword Planner, it's the best thing we really have going for us in terms of getting search volume data out of Google. We can potentially refine some of the data with clickstream data, or get estimates by running Google Adwords campaigns and watching impression counts, or even looking in Google Search Console. But none of these are strong replacements for the Google Keyword Planner.
Instead of letting Google Keyword Planner's problems get in the way of your keyword research, use it to your advantage. Look for the edge cases where a keyword has a ton of misspellings mapped to the correct version, but not combined into the volume score. This could be a great win that your competitors are overlooking because the head term looks smaller than it really is. Wherever there's bad data, there's also money to be made in sweating the details. So, put your gloves on and get to scrubbing your Keyword Planner data. Somewhere beneath the rough is a diamond.
This is such a great post for so many reasons, I'm really glad this was written and published by Moz. Its often overlooked by marketers because its the only thing we have available. I don't think most marketers have the time or will power to create a regression model, although that is a great alternative to getting more accurate data. I hope as smart as Google is, they refine the keyword planner to have narrower margins for their avg monthly search volume buckets. Its pretty ridiculous that there's nothing in between 201,000 and 165,000.
Totally agree with @Gaetano here, there is some dead space in it, so it wouldn't be bad to fill it out.
Great article, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!
Best,
VS
Russ,
Thanks for taking me back to STAT 301 from college. (I received an A-, thank you :)
Seriously, though, we all benefit from knowing what we're up against as it regards the GKP. I've seen folks/agencies/brands totally disregard it, and others rely too heavily on it.
It's important that we, as you assert, continue to seek out the best sources of information, but even those will be imperfect.
RS
Wow. I had my suspicions that Keyword Planner was inaccurate, but I didn't quite realise to what extent. This is crazy!
Yeah, it isn't unusable but it comes with some pretty big gotchas.
And in spanish is even worse. It has a loooot of "strange recommendations"... :-)
It may not be perfect, but the Google Keyword Planner more than meets our needs! We use it for all of our full service SEO clients. The reasons are simple - it's the best data set around and it comes straight from the source. Besides, there's a lot more to choosing the right keywords for a website. Multiple factors, including client feedback, the initial keyword research, and the actual content of the page are all taken into consideration. So, Keyword Planner data is definitely useful, but it is not the only thing that helps us make keyword decisions.
I agree that it is useful, but hopefully now it can be more useful!
you are right "jones"
Thanks for shining a light on this, Russ! By detailing how the rounding and bucketing works, you've actually helped eliminate that feeling of vague, helpless distrust and replaced it with educated, empowered distrust! Good point regarding finding situations where spelling variations may cause some to draw the wrong conclusions about keyword opportunities. Similarly, I think uncovering situations where Google's increasingly intelligent algorithm is mapping different but semantically similar keywords to the same results also presents opportunities. I often find myself wishing that the recommendation algorithm used by the Keyword Planner had the same semantic intelligence as the algorithm used to generate search results.
We can get at some of this semantic mapping by using SERP analysis. Be on the lookout for this in Keyword Explorer
Even though GKP will remains one of the most attractive in use and handy for many folks.
It is and it should be. People should be aware of a tool's limitations, but just because it is imperfect doesn't make it incredibly useful.
absolutely agree, it does not mean it is incredibly useful.
Russ, when you built the pre-cursor to the new Moz keyword tool you wanted to show data based on what ranks per PAGE on websites. That's what I use to reverse engineer Hummingbird and Google confidence in mis-spells. Using data to show co-occurrences you can find exactly how much confidence google has in mis-spells.
From your research, they are NOT showing their confidence in what mis-spells go to particular keyword phrases-- this is what I suspected, and I've spoken with some large PPC agencies about this. It's very annoying. They have the data from their machine learning, so why not show it to AdWords buyers? Here's an example of how they redirected the top websites ranking for "Fitbit" with different spellings. I shared this previously with 100s of people I demoed co-occurrences. The co-occurrences below shows how many of the top authority pages that DO rank high for the correct spelling received top 10 ranking for the mis-spellings. So with the below, these are the redirected mis-spells showing 7 most authority vs 6 vs 5. We now know the 7s they judge have higher confidence than the 5s. More info on my methods via my webinar recording for Vertical Measures: https://www.verticalmeasures.com/webinars/reverse-e...
co-occurrences | Keyword
7 firbit
7 fit bit
7 fit it
6 bitfit
6 fid bit
6 fidbit
6 fit b
5 bit fit
5 fitbity
5 fitbiyt
5 fitzip
Russ, this is a great analysis and it confirms what my gut has been telling me for so long.
The chief problem with Google's Keyword Planner is that is focuses on broad, short-tail keywords because Google intends the tool to be used in PPC and not SEO campaigns. Like, you can get keyword volumes -- accurate or not -- for, say, "marketing software" or "ppc software" or "marketing automation software."
But in this and many other examples, it's very difficult to get any useful keyword volume data for a ton of long-tail queries. And I have yet to see a good alternative. SimilarWeb might work, I have yet to try it.
SEO software companies, take heed: If you could somehow provide search volume data for hundreds or thousands of long-tail keywords in any given niche, I'm sure that the demand would be HUGE.
Great post which explains a lot about the keyword planner. Thanks for sharing
Another great article that I didn't understand half of what was said! Haha...bottom line...GKP not too accurate after all! Thanks for shedding a light on things!
It is best to think of GKP as a 10000 foot view, so to speak. It just isn't very specific.
Great post.
Question: "We know this is the case because Google Keyword Planner also exposes the last 12 months of traffic data" where can you find this? I've been searching and exploring but can only ever find monthly search volumes? How do you see traffic estimates as a yearly total?
If you click into "get search volume data and trends" it gives you the average trend for all the keywords you are looking at, i am not sure if you can get this data at a keyword level, unless you are prepared to put one keyword in at a time
When you find related keywords, click on keyword ideas. Click the download all and choose "segment by month". This will give you the last 12 months in your export.
Apologies, originally posted this while logged into the agency account!
The caveat with using the 12 months is the seasonality factor. In fact, the examples you shared "baseball scores" and "basketball scores" is a great example of that. "Baseball scores" has a greater variance over the 12 months, with less than 5,000 searches in the offseason.
When I look at averages for Nov14 - Oct15, "baseball scores" has higher average volume, 18K higher than "basketball scores."
When I look at averages for Nov13 - Oct15, "basketball scores" has the higher average volume, 15K higher than "baseball scores."
Look below the GetSearchVolume button, between Columns and Download buttons, you will notice trange icon, it is the ToggleChart icon. It will reveal a column chart for the last 12 months. Also, on the left column menu, there is the Show avg. Monthly Searches option, which you can change to show the last 24 months. Of course, you will have to add up the figures with a calculator. And this method also disregards the seasonality factors... Good luck !
Very informative. Thanks.
Glad someone wrote about this.
I have noticed a lot of inaccurate search volume data in Keyword Planner. It made me question all of the countless working hours I spent relying on the tool, where I just presumed Google had it covered! I have seen traffic impressions in Search Console which are much greater than what Google reports in their Planner.
This is one of the fuzzy questions we don't really know about. It is possible that an "Impression" is different between Search Console and Adwords. For example, maybe an "Impression" in search console is every time someone sees the SERP, even if they hit refresh or the back button to get there. In Adwords, it might be every unique impression in 30 seconds, not counting back-button presses. We don't really know, but it can certainly account for discrepancies.
you are absolutely right . I have been depending on adword tool for the past couple years and it hasn't succeeded enough. Probably the data in te tool needs interpretations in order to use it in effective way. Thanks for the info
Tha
I'd like to star this post. But don't know how. Just to leave a mes to mark...
Great Post.. thanks for sharing this.. I was having Blind Faith in Google AdWord Keyword Planner.. This post changed my mind and surely after this i will start using several other Keyword Tools !
Something else to note on this, Google is giving you exact match data in the Keyword Planner. Google Search does not use exact match to generate the SERP set. They Keyword Planner will call out different volumes and competition for singular and plural versions of the same keyword -- and it's the same keyword because if you go search either variant, Google's returning the same SERP set for both. ie: Dallas Hotels, Dallas Hotel, Hotels in Dallas, Hotel in Dallas.
Thank you for this post. There are so many posts about "great content" and so few about fundamental principles of SEO.
Same here i have to say. First Source is the Keyword Planer from Google. I think someone could try ton manipulate the results for his or her business to go on faster or what else they trying to do. just some thoughts of mine :)
Nice to have a list - it's great to refer back to. I think we've always known that Google Keyword Planner is miles out.
Great post, thank you for sharing. It's great to understand more about how Keyword Planner works and the holes in the data.
I think even with quite a few considerable drawbacks its still the best tool in the market because of the way it suggests such similar keywords. What makes it invaluable is the understanding of a keyword landscape around your users intent or landing page.
It is still the best free tool around, but there are better paid ones, IMHO, and an even better one coming out ;-)
Thank you Russ Jones!! You have revealed an amazing facts about Google Keywords Planner dirty secrets
Thanks for this Russ, have you done any analysis on Search console? is it trustworthy? I still can't understand why Google would show different information in analytics and search console.
The data is just acquired differently between the two, AFAIK. For example, GSC registers a click on the click event itself, not whether the user waits for the page to load GA. Moreover, the user might click the same link multiple times. GA might count that or exclude it as not a unique visit. It is really hard to know. The collection methods are just so different that we would expect there to be some pretty big differences.
Thanks for that Russ, really waiting for your keyword research tool, when would it be live?
Nice explained Russ Jones but i found that grepwords.com is not working that you have mention above.
Thanks for the heads up - it is up again.
It's great to know that. Thanks for such good information.
But still most of the SEO gurus claim Google Keyword Planner is the best one for keyword research.Recently Brian Dean point out something like this and he shows how to get hidden keywords through Google Keyword Planner on his ebook.
#3 was a surprise to me. I've been doing SEO for my clients to 8 years and I didn't know there were a lot of extra keywords that were being largely ignored in their list of keyword suggestions. Thanks for the heads up, I'll use alternative keyword tools in the future on top of the keyword planner just to make sure I get the most comprehensive list possible and not miss out on any big keywords.
Very helpful article. Thanks.
It almost seems as if Google isn't all interested in providing an easy to use, and useful, keyword tool - they just want you to roll with their 'suggestions' and be a happy camper :-)
Amazing article to ponder and work upon. Passing it on my colleagues so that even they can ponder over so much information.
Albeit I'm a newbie in the search field, this post serves a great purpose - make me research about the nitty gritty of the Google Keyword Planner and using it optimally in my work.
Thanks! :)
With my little observation, I would say that this research analysis of keywords is perfect, with data from Google, I would really ask a question, I hope it goes well with references, me, each search for keywords, I find at the end that this research include programs or applications that are not yet recognized in some parts of the world, as in my country, and I wonder if this is due and up to the country laws or regulations in Google, in reality, there are some keywords that do not find their emergence, because they include data and applications and programs that are not allowed in some countries, it is the only thing and the question which makes me shocked in the end, I hope that I am in the thick of this and algorithms of the keywords, thank you for this very rewarding source that carries with it great positive predictions.
I always use Google keyword planner for site keyword research & analysis. Thanks @Russ Jones
Google Keyword Planner's Best FREE alternative Tool for SEO & PPC keyword research!
Thanks for share...
Google Keyword Planner is my first choice for good keyword research.
Thanks though am a newbie but reading this would really help me
Awesome post. Will check the grepwords tool. thanks :)
The dirtiest secret is that the Keyword Planner is now totally unusable. The estimate results are not enough to check if a keyword has potential. After I heard the news I researched tons of alternatives and Luckily I found a perfect tool. In my honest opinion better than the Google keyword planner. I talk about the tool here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRgrTRIHMEE
Why google keyword planner is now showing average keyword search volume instead of the exact stats that it used to show earlier, for example last week when I search for the keyword "hotels in Jaipur" then it showed around 22k searches per month but today it is showing 20k-100k ( for exact searches please create and run a campaign ). why so ? there is anything wrong with my search setting ?
Great peace of Information.Thanks a tun...I was keenly seeing forward for best keyword research strategy for my mobile pos project.this blog was really a pillar of support. Thanks buddy.
[link removed by editor]
thanks for this really great article by this i learn many things and its first article of this topic that was really inspiring me and all https://entrepreneurblogtips.com/keyword-tool/
Just another way of turning the dirty into whitehat, great job and great tips Russ!
Great posts !! I would like to know when the Moz Keyword Explorer will release ? Thanks in advance
Hi Russ..thanks for share keep in touch.
Great, I didn't kwon this issues about Keyword Planner
I've always had an issue with them rounding the months to an average. If you look at the costume market for example its enormous in October (Halloween) yet very very slow most of the other months, but for a new business they build unrealistic expectations based on rouded numbers.
Great article! I read with more calm and dedication because you can get great knowledge of the Google algorithm and how to apply it in the SEO strategies
Wow. I am very surprised. I didn't know these secrets in Google Keyword Planner. I use it each day. All information in this post will help me. Thanks.
Great post - many thanks. I've always maintained the KWP is wrong, but I didn't know how right that was!
Always, Our mind is the best keyword planner. Keeping us in the shoes of the customer is the best way to identity keywords.
Grepwords.com is down :(
It is back up now :-)
Russ 2016!
Seriously great post friend. Glad someone finally called out everything and left no where for Google to hide. Love the regression model suggestions, might have to try those out.
Do you know these numbers of the buckets to be true ? Or is it an estiimate ?
Another thing : If you actual number is 175.000 per month, why wouldn`t you get into the 165.000 bucket in stead of the 201.000 bucket ? If you get tied up to the nearest bucket that would make sense. To me
We weren't able to determine an exact cutoff for why something gets in a particular bucket because we don't know the exact number of searches :-) That number is never told to us, unfortunately, only the bucket.
Really great post. I only know GKP but seldom use it. And I don't know how to do the regression model you mentioned above.
Great Post, very informative
Thanks!
I remember using this tool back in the day. when you - 70% of the total searches you got closer to reality. They improved it now its only -35% :) And don't get me started on broad, phrase and exact match research ..
I've been wondering about this for a long time. Thanks for spelling it out for us. :)
i seldom use keyword planner, i usually use google trend data and auto complete function from google search box.
Thanks for the article it is very good.
And just think... all my classmates in college thought that statistics was a waste of time! I do wonder though, as keywords get more competitive, how long will it take for our competitors to catch on? Thanks for keeping us ahead of the curve Russ!
when is the launch plan for Keyword Explorer ? I can't wait to try it out. Thanks
Thanks for sharing - there is a lot of good information here.
I'd like to add to this list that not all keywords are actually recorded by Keyword Planner. I haven't noticed it very often, but I have come across instances of a high volume keyword dropping out of the Keyword Planner index completely. As tools like SEMRush are based on Keyword Planner data, these errors can get carried across to other platforms.
This issue isn't as acute as it once might of been as we are all grouping relevant keywords and synonyms these days and it is likely that any missing keywords will be contained as part of the other keywords you identify. Like all SEO tools, Keyword Planner isn't perfect and it has its strengths and weaknesses - you just have to keep your wits about you when you use it.
Great Post - I found the "hidden keywords" particularly surprising!... Surely Google are missing out on a gold mine of ad revenue by not suggesting the 4 highest volume keywords! If they were to suggest those people would likely bid on a number of them, perhaps not all, but for those they did it would be win win for all concerned you'd have thought?
Thanks for the great posts. Gives me a lot of new insights.
Good Post!
Very Informative Post.. Thanks. ..
So, we are using wrong tool for KW research? Your mentioned points are valid and I think I need to find another tool that provide exact results for any Kw.
Thank you for sharing these secrets.
Like everything else... never ever base your decision on just one source of data. I always use Google Keyword Planner as the first stop to get a ballpark idea of how many searches a keyword gets and also what other keywords are getting searched within that certain kind of group.
Wow. This is such a great post. First time of finding out that Google uses buckets to define keyword volume. Thanks for recommending Grepwords and click steam. Will give them a try.
What about BING shows the same numbers as GKP do.?
That's Awesome description about keyword planned. especially Strange recommendations for similar keywords suggestions not up to the mark. i face these problems while i going panning keywords for our Mobile App Development India and UK company.
Google need to change a-lot for making keyword planner strong !
Thanks for share...
This kind of reminds me of the way Google samples analytics data, it renders it useless for any detailed analysis but still gives you a good idea of what is going on.
Do you know if the same bucket grouping is in place for webmaster tools?
I don't believe it is, but it is worth a shot. For what it is worth, Bing data has much more granular buckets
Intelligent article, but how can I get free Keywords research tool for SEO? Tell me please!