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

As one of Wordtracker's technical support team (http://www.searchenginehelp.com), 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 for the complete article.)

Robin Nobles is Co-Director of Training for Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com). She has trained several thousand people in her hands-on 2-5 day optimization and marketing workshops at locations across the globe and her online SEO courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). Robin is also a member of Wordtracker's special technical support team (http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html), and she partners with John Alexander whose eBook, Wordtracker Magic (http://www.wordtracker-magic.com), offers unique strategies for applying the Wordtracker service to generate profits for online marketers.

First published in Planet Ocean News. (http://www.searchenginehelp.com)

Copyright 2004 Robin Nobles. All Right Reserved.

Related links:

Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture..Part1
Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture..Part2
Demystifying The Radically Different Keyword Results Provided By Overture..Part3