Overture's Search Suggestion Tool

[greenmonster]

Does anyone have any statistically educated guess as to the possible multiple of results from the Search Suggestion Tool? Meaning if you see that 2000 pp searched for "hats" last month, what is an estimate of that on the entire search population as a whole?
They claim to drive 85% of the web but I don't think that could be translated to an accurate account in this case...

Thanks for the insight,

Scott
The Green Monster

[jeremy goodrich]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

The numbers on that tool don't make much sense to me, either. The only truly accurate measure of 'web search volume' is your own logs :) And those are suspect, as well.

Think of it this way: Google reports that 1/2 of all queries through their system occur only 1 time in that month, which means the vast majority of clicks and searches are not going to be for 'widgets' but 'generic widget online location' or something that effect.

That being said by way of disclaimer, my general rule of thumb is that for a 'non competitive term' it could be the net wide traffic is at least double, up to 5 or so times what the tool says.

For a 'competitive term' (like widget) there might be 1/2 or less...because of the inflation of people marketing for 'widget' and position checking, etc.

Hope that helps, cheers.

[Mikkel Svendsen]

You will get a much more precise estimate for the web if you use WordTracker.

However, if you estimate word by word you will never get the right number - your have to research in "themes" to estimate precisely. If you count the total number for a group of keywords in the same theme you will get a pretty accurate estimate - statistically speaking.

[Receptional]

Be careful of their "85%" claim. They are claiming 85% "reach" not 85% of results.

This means they claim to have some kind of listing on 85% of search result pages generated. Tall order when Google (IMHO) is generating 20% under its own branded site.