Julia - 10:53 am on May 31, 2003 (gmt 0)

I also agree that extrapolating from Meta search engines to other search engines does have flaws. Perhaps the results for widget related keywords are skewed higher or lower. However, I tend to believe that the relative search frequency between the widget related keywords is more immune to extrapolation flaws. For example, the estimated searches for “blue widget” and “red widget” from Wordtracker may be too low in both cases but the ratio of estimated searches between “blue widget” and “red widget” may be quite accurate.

Theoretically it is true but it didn't work for me with Wordtracker. The tool reported a three-word phrase was way too popular and beat a two-word term. I took it seriously and ended being betweem #2-9 and getting a fraction of expected traffic.

To sweeten the pill I must admit when I experimented with other keywords using WebCEO the ratio was more or less trustworthy.