Keywords research

[RB]

I just tried searching for a few words in Wordtracker for the territory US (rest of the world): rakeback and poker

The results showed me there were only 5 and approx 3000 respectively in volume. Am I missing something? Why are there so few searches?

Thank you

[RB]

Just noticed I made a mistake: if I click the 'Google' tab and type in either of those key words then the volume comes up as hundreds of thousands! Oops! Can someone explain to me what the major differences is?

Also under the 'Google' tab, the Volume column displays: 'The number of searches reported by the Google AdWords API for the US in the last available month'.
- Am I correct to say that US in this case means 'rest of the world' on Wordtracker.
- When there are keywords with few thousands under 'Volume' and has nothing under 'Competition' - this means it's a good Keyword for us to use right?

Thanks!

[Mark Nunney]

I can't post links but try searching with:

Wordtracker + Google + SEO = Win

... and look for:

Google keyword research data | Wordtracker

[machino]

Only take it as an estimate don't always believe the figures (just bare that in mind)

[Michael Martinez]

It's been a few years since I had to use Wordtracker but back in the day they were not getting their keyword/traffic data from Google. It sounds like they have integrated the AdWords data into the process now?

Anyway, the discrepancy you're seeing may be due to the sources they are using. Wordtracker was a great tool for a multi-search engine world.

What most people don't realize is that you cannot reliably use external keyword data to set optimization targets for any search engine.

That is, you need to use Google's data to set Google optimization targets, Bing's data to set Bing optimization targets, etc.