What does Competitive mean?

as related to keywords

[ken_b]

I'm curious what folks think "competitive" means when it comes to keywords.
For me, my main Keyword (actually a 2 word phrase) returns 1,400,000 on google.

Add another word and it drops to 360,000 - 385,000.

More specific searches (but still 2 - 3 words) can bring it down to 5,000 - 7,000, and in some cases a LOT less.

(I do very well with the last group, pretty good with the second group, and am still dreaming about the first group. )

But when I see the term "competiitive" related to keywords, I don't really have an idea what folks mean.

So is the 1,400,000 number really, really competitive and the 380,000 or so, just average?

Is there an average?

[JamesR]

Competitive to me relates to how many sites + how many of those sites are optimized. Once you know how to optimize a site, numbers don't matter a ton. Also, look at the page rank for the sites in the top 10.

[JayC]

Exactly, JamesR. And it's a subjective term.

To use a timely sports comparison: which of the groups in the World Cup is the most "competitive?"

There's no hard and fast answer; it's subjective, it's dependent upon opinion, and it also depends on the context in which you're speaking. And in the seo sense, the numbers really are meaningless without considering how much optimizaion is being done, and how hard other sites are fighting for position. That is, whether it's competitive depends on how tough the competition is! :)