Keyword tool

[NFFC]

Could be a handy little freeware tool for some light keyword research.

http://www.goodkeywords.com

[rcjordan]

looks pretty good, doesn't it?

That reminds me, has anyone tackled Spy's [searchengineworld.com] keyword all-super-report-2000 (524591 bytes) ?? That script has been plugging away long enough that it should really make for some good reading --I just haven't had the time.

[marker rcjordan]

[WebGuerrilla]

I just downloaded this last night and have not yet begun to use it. Have either of you been using it since your original post?

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

[agerhart]

I have used Good Keywords many times before, and it is a very helpful tool. The only downside that I have seen to this tool is that some of the SE categories like Lycos and DH don't always display good results, or rather they don't display any results at all. The only one I use with the tool is the GoTo section.

[Robert Charlton]

After looking at the Good Keywords website I really can't tell what their tool does. I can guess what it might do, but that's not because they told me much on the site. Can anyone tell me what information it returns?

[agerhart]

There is not much to the Good Keywords program. There is a field box for you to type in the keyword of choice, and then it receives data from the search engines letting you know how many times the particular keyword is entered. It also gives you results for variations of the keyword. Good Keywords offers, I believe, about eight search engines.

[Robert Charlton]

>>then it receives data from the search engines letting you know how many times the particular keyword is entered<<

I'm not sure what you mean by "entered." We're all trying to find out how many times a particular keyword is searched, and right now GoTo is the only place where this kind of information is easily gotten, but GoTo's tool is seriously flawed. If search information is what's returned, then this tool is very valuable. I'm guessing that's not what the tool is telling you, though.

[agerhart]

Robert,
Actually you are correct, Good Keywords gives the user the # of times the keyword is searched for within each search engine. All I can say is check it out. Go to www.download.com, and grab it.

[WebGuerrilla]

I finally got around to playing with it, and it was pretty dissapointing. All it really does is query GoTo and 7Search's databases. The rest of the engines are only related search data.

Not to useful if you are trying to get away from GoTo's skewed results. (which have become much worse now that they are including searches from partner sites).

[CaveToad]

Ok, I'm in the disappointed camp as well.
Just not enought meat in there to make it worthwhile.

[luckynh]

>rcjordan
I'm Not quite up on this:
Spy's [searchengineworld.com] keyword all-super-report-2000(78123 bytes)

So I took a look at this but was not quite sure how it interpret it.
I guess that the headlines are:
#:Count:Keyword
1:13562: online
2:12571:download
3:10379:car
4:9369:lyrics
5:9227:music
6:9086:mp3
7:8592:internet
8:7404:games
9:7038:software
10:6749:world

Just so i have it correct,
so the word "online" has been used "13562" time and ranks "1" over all of the other words?

[jaanis]

Dont even waste time with any other keyword tool. Use www.wordtracker.com. I have been in SEO for 2 years now and I found Wordtracker 9 months ago. It has been the single biggest improvement in our business that we can control. Of course traffic levels come and go on all different engines, but I never have to question my keyword decisions and selections.

[Robert Charlton]

Do you have any handle on how large a sampling it provides? GoTo, for example, has been pegged at 4 or 5% of crawler based engines?

My concern with Wordtracker is that niche searches, variants of those larger searches, where adding a few extra adjectives in your title will double your search target... that those searches will go completely under the radar in what I believe is Wordtracker's smaller database.

I understand that Wordtracker has some very convenient lateral search capabilities, etc... but lateral search shows what other sites are targeting. I'm not looking for suggestions based on what people are targeting... I'm looking for suggestions based on what people actually search.

I don't know whether Wordtracker will do that... but I've never been able to get enough specific information about the tool to motivate me to try it.

[WebGuerrilla]

WT could definitely do a better job explaining to potential new users how their tool works.

Regarding lateral searches, WT works like this:

You type in you desired word/phrase. WT then queries search engines and returns your original term plus dozens of lateral terms extracted from the title and meta tags from the top pages in the search results. Once you have the lateral list, you can click on any term and WT will search it's database and return a count of all the phrases it finds that contains your original phrase.

What makes the lateral search so interesting is that it provides a very quick snap shot of how well or how poorly a particular niche is optimized. It is almost like a global theme inspector. Some keywords return dozens of on-target variations, while others return lists that drift off into completely unrelated areas.

The limited database size does mean that there is a certain level of secondary variations that won't show up on the radar screen, however these are usually terms that your original optimized pages will show up for, so you can make additional adjustments based upon your log files.

All in all, I would like to see them increase the size of the database, but I'd much rather work woth a smaller database that gives an accurate assesment of phrase popularity then a larger one that is completely skewed by automated position reporting.

[Robert Charlton]

WG - Thanks for clearest explanation I've seen of what WordTracker does. Can you make any guesses, by comparing number of results with GoTo results, what its sample size is, say as a percentage of GoTo?

[WebGuerrilla]

I don't recall ever reading any info as to the actual size of GoTo's database, but I do know that the current WT database is a revolving 8 week sample of around 40 million searches. The also recently announced that they have made a couple of new deals that will bring their database up to 300 million over the next couple of weeks.

[king620]

I just used your keyword finder tool. It helps me find keywords which are quite related to the major keyword im using. But I would like to know on how were you able to generate the figures. Was it based on the number of searches per day or per month?

At the same time, I'm curious about the goto interrogator tool. Is is somehow similar to KEYWORD FINDER?

I'd be interested to hear from you guys.

[WebGuerrilla]

Hi King620,

Welcome to WmW.

I'm not quite sure which keyword tool you are referring to when you say "your keyword finder tool."

Are you talking about Brett's tool at searchengineworld?

[Brett_Tabke]

Hi king, welcome to the board. The keyword finder uses Goto too - it is an off shoot of the other util. Same data as the goto suggestion tool. It just digs out all the related words instead of making you hunt and peck for them.

[Chris_R]

Google has a tool as well, but it is not market as such. Very useful. Just try and sign up for the adwords program. Helpful if you are targeting google.

[WebGuerrilla]

The AdWords tool is nice if you already have a list of potential keywords. If your still trying to build a list, it isn't very effective because it doesn't offer any kind of lateral search function.

[detlev]

Hey everyone,

WT just inked a deal with Dogpile and Metacrawler. Their database jumped 7 fold.

-detlev

[WebGuerrilla]

Hey D-

Nice to have you stop by. Don't be such a stranger.. :)

I've been playing with the new WT database quite a bit over the last few days, and I think it's really quite amazing. It's nice to see all the secondary combinations that you used to have to come up with by mixing a little intuition with whole lot of log file data, show up in your initial queries.

I'm still getting used to some of the changes, but so far it appears that jumping from a database of 40mil to 350mil will be quite beneficial.

[NFFC]

>Their database jumped 7 fold

An alternate point of view could be that their dB has become 7 times more corrupted.

[WebGuerrilla]

I love alternate points of view. Care to expand?? :)

[Brett_Tabke]

It's metacrawler. The demographics are vastly different from a "real" search engine. With all the purchased results, demographics are more slanted than ever.

[Robert Charlton]

It's funny... a web designer for whom I'd optimized a website told me this afternoon that the client couldn't find us, and I asked where they'd searched, and he said they'd used Metacrawler, and I said, "Who uses Metacrawler?"

:o Who does use Metacrawler?

I'm assuming that at best it's people who aren't very sophisticated about search. Since Metacrawler is a meta site, though, do the paid listings corrupt searcher info in the same way that GoTo search info is corrupted (where webmasters don't have sense enough not to do it in their own back yard)?

[NFFC]

>Care to expand??

Just simply that if the results were unsatisfactory with a dB of 30 million, then the addition of more inaccurate data will only serve to increase the errors.

I was a user for most of last year and been back for another look. I still get many results that I *know* are plain wrong.

[Robert Charlton]

Just to play devil's advocate...

>>...if the results were unsatisfactory with a dB of 30 million, then the addition of more inaccurate data will only serve to increase the errors.<<

There would also be additional accurate data. To me what's important is whether the percentage of inaccurate data were increased. A larger database would at least pull niche-searches up into view.

>>I was a user for most of last year and been back for another look. I still get many results that I *know* are plain wrong.<<

GoTo also gives results that are just plain wrong. With its increased size, is WT better or worse than GoTo? I'm not sure that it's relevent any more to ask how current WT compares to the older WT.

Points of comparison for me would be sizes of the GoTo and WT databases, demographics of searchers, proportion of anomalous data between the two databases, and fine distinctions in data (like singular/plural and misspelling distinctions, no longer available on GoTo).

[TallTroll]

Lay-dees and gennelmin,

Could someone tell me if there will be further psotings from the Spy? The last daily report is from 24/9/00. Also, could you clarify over what length of time the all-super-report-2000 was compiled? It *looks* like it only covers the period 24/5/00 - 24/9/00, 4 months. As the top result is "online" @ 13562 requests, that would seem reasonable (as this tracks single word queries only).

I'd really also like to see a "Son of Spy" report, covering phrase requests, and set up for weekly or monthly (or both - go for it!) data dumps. Any likelihood of that being a soon-to-be-added feature?

OK, </me-me-me mode> <worship mode> I LUUUURVE this site! I've recently started having to consider SEO topics, as its a growing part of my job, due to client demand (bless 'em every one), and without some of the stuff I've seen here, I would be having some very bad weeks. I knew even less than I thought I did, and I owe everyone who's contributed to the various discussions here a big "Thank You!". I might just manage not to make a total fool of myself if I keep up with what goes on here </worship mode>

Cheers, people