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Demystifying
The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture and Wordtracker ...because
your online success depends on getting accurate keyword counts! Part 3
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by Robin Nobles
(Continued from Part 2. Contact Robin@SearchEngineWorkshops.com
for the complete article.)
Finally: Making sense of the numbers (here comes
the shock).
Ok, now that you understand the artificial skew and the alternatives
that can correct for it, lets move on to analyze the numbers given by Overtures
STST and Wordtrackers keyword selection service (KSS) using the search term(s)
keyword(s).
An in depth look at Overtures STST numbers...
Overtures
STST shows 180,468 searches were conducted. This represents the combined count
of the search terms keyword, keywords, Keywords, KEYWORD and KEYWORDS - the combined
total of all singular, plural, capitalized, upper and lower-case searches.
When
we divide Overtures count (180,468) by 30 (because Overtures figures are for a
30-day period), the inference is there are 6,016 searches per day that meet this
criteria. In actuality, they receive just 40-60 per day total (are we shocked
yet?).
Heres how were crunching the numbers.
Fact: Overtures STST
suggests a combined average of 6,016 page views took place between Overture and
its major partners - e.g. AltaVista, Yahoo, and others - each day for the month
of December 03. Were referring to search result pages like: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=keywords&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-
t&cop=mss&tab=
Fact: Each of these results pages lists between
10 and 40 URLs with descriptions.
Factor in Zipfs Law which predicts that
traffic for any particular keyword on a search engine will be proportional to
its popularity rank.
Factor in how the title and description affect a
users propensity to click on a Web site.
Factor in the Penn State Universitys
findings that 55% of users check out one search result only, and 80% stop after
looking at three results.
Factor in known elements leading to an estimated,
but educated, conclusion as such...
Since its a fact that Wordtrackers
Web site appears in the top- ten of Overtures results throughout their partner
realm, they should be getting a guesstimateed 10% of the overall click- throughs
from all major engines, pay-per-clicks, and directories.
That would equate
to about 602 visitors per day.
However, Wordtracker is currently ranked
1-10 on only about 25% of the major engines, directories and pay-per-click portals
for the search term, keyword(s)... Calculate the estimate...
...therefore,
the Wordtracker site should expect roughly 25% of this predicted click-through
traffic, which is 150 visitors per day.
Compare calculated estimate to
known facts...
In fact, Wordtracker receives 10 - 15 visitors per day
for the search term(s) keyword(s). In fact, Overtures STST overestimates this
search query by a factor of 10.
Furthermore, since Wordtracker is estimating
they receive approximately 25% of the total traffic then that would put the total
traffic generated at 40 to 60 per day (25% of 40 to 60 = 10 to 15 visitors a day).
In fact, Overtures STST overestimates the total search query count by
a factor of 100 ...based on 6,016 being more than 100 times greater than the 40
to 60 figure suggested by Wordtrackers actual visitors.
Experience shock
and awe at the difference between the numbers!
Wordtrackers service provides
very different numbers...
Using the same search term(s) keyword(s), we
pulled a representative result from the Wordtracker database (on January 13, 2004)
that predicts searches per day conducted throughout the major engines, directories
and pay-per-clicks on the Internet.
The results were...
keyword
- 93 searches (lower case, singular) Keyword - 39 searches (Capitalized, singular)
keywords - 187 searches (lower case, plural) Keywords - 184 searches (Capitalized,
plural) KEYWORD - 115 searches (UPPER case, singular) Total Predicted Daily Searches
for all Engines = 618
This figure - 618 - Wordtracker compiled directly
from results taken from Meta-engines, Metacrawler and Dogpile in order to eliminate
the artificial skew.
Wordtracker further adjusted the number downward
by filtering out keyword spam (as defined above) based upon a proprietary formula
used to identify search terms that are being searched at intervals too regular
to have been conducted by actual humans.
These suspiciously regular and
assumed to be artificially generated searches are therefore discounted in arriving
at the final number - 618.
Even when taking into account such dependent
variables such as position, title, and description, we would expect (logically
guesstimate) the website to receive about 10% of the total traffic due to top-ten
placement, targeted title and relevant link-description.
And finally,
we should expect no better than 25% of that total traffic, due to the fact that
Wordtracker has top-ten placement in only 25% of the relevant engines.
So
the calculations show...
618 x 10% = 61.8 x 25% = approx 15 visits per
day.
This is more in line with Wordtrackers actual 10-15 per day average
number of visits generated by the 5 variations of the search term keyword across
all of the major engines.
So, whose numbers should we trust?
When
it comes to trusting the numbers, you should take into account what you are using
them for. If youre looking to determine relative popularity of a given item, service,
topic, or category, then Overtures STST can fill the bill nicely - and for free!
For instance, Overtures STST returns the following numbers for the following
searches...
58,312 home insurance 57,315 home owner insurance 233,854
auto insurance 570,337 car insurance
This tells us (for free) that car
insurance gets about twice as many searches as auto insurance. It also tells us
that home insurance gets about the same number of searches as home owner insurance
...and that searches for car insurance is TEN times more popular than home owner
insurance.
No doubt about it, when researching what to sell online, this
is valuable preliminary information that Overtures STST provides for free.
However,
based upon what we now know about artificial skew, wed want to get a third-party-review
of the search terms - one that adjusted the numbers for skew - before we bought
advertising on a pay-per-click engine or spent good time and money optimizing
a site for organic (think Google) Web search results.
After all, if Overture
shows 6,016 "hits" per day out of which Wordtracker is experiencing 15 visitors,
then reality suggests we should do the math (i.e., apply the information) that
distills the raw numbers into useful data. Lets first decide if "15" visitors
per day will pay the advertising bill (duh!) ...and, if the reality count is anywhere
near 6,016, well be ecstatic, right?
Always remember its the amateurs
that believe optimistically romanced numbers just before they lose their wallets
on the way to bankruptcy. Professional marketers learn to err on the downside
of expectations and then smile when the pleasant surprises shower down riches.
They know that nothing beats accurate information - the most powerful
marketing tool on earth.
Robin
Nobles teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops thru
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com
in locations across the globe as well as online courses at http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/.
Robins partner, John Alexander, recently published an e-book titled, "Wordtracker
Magic," at http://www.wordtracker-magic.com
(which offers great tips for helping you learn how to focus on your target audience.) |
