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importance of exact match, and ... "where'd all the searches go?"

(8 posts)

  1. momo
    Member

    I am still trying to wrap my head around phrase match and exact match. Once I start to think I understand it, I uncover new treasures.

    There have been several posts on the 30DC, Immediate Edge and this forum about what these numbers mean. Brent and others have already contributed to a lot to this topic. But...

    Here is what I keep running up against: The exact search traffic is sometimes MUCH less than the broad or phrase match traffic. Where did it go? So the follow up question then is, how important is it?

    For example, my top three major phrases that I am targeting have the following search data (not my real niche, but considering it - these are real numbers though)

    fuzzy cat pajamas
    SEOT Broad: 6214
    SEOT Phrase: 5078
    SEOT Exact: 33

    cat sweaters
    SEOT Broad: 6214
    SEOT Phrase: 5068
    SEOT Exact: 137

    cat underwear
    SEOT Broad: 2279
    SEOT Phrase: 1859
    SEOT Exact: 22

    [This is all-regions data from the google adwords keyword tool, and using the formula: (monthly searches/30.5 days)*0.42, or equivalently, monthly searches*0.0138]

    I would rather use the exact match terms with the highest traffic, but I can't find them! For example, a 3 word phrase has 6 permutations:

    fuzzy cat pajamas
    fuzzy pajamas cat
    cat fuzzy pajamas
    cat pajamas fuzzy
    pajamas cat fuzzy
    pajamas fuzzy cat

    I put all of these permutations in the Adwords keyword tool, and ask for synonyms and new ideas for keywords, and the highest exact match data I get are the one shown. Most of the other suggestions give me the "Not enough data" line. Definitely not enough traffic shown in any of the other keyword combinations or suggestions that would make up the difference between exact and phrase match. This happens often.

    I know people are adding words to the beginning and end of these phrases:
    "looking for fuzzy cat pajamas"
    "sexy fuzzy cat pajamas"
    "are fuzzy cat pajamas in style?"
    ...

    But do all of these possibilities really add up to more than 12000 searches per day? In other words, the highest exact match found only accounts for about 0.5% of the total searches that make up the phrase match data.

    There might be that many different combinations of words types in that include the phrase match, but I am skeptical. Does anyone really know how google calculates these numbers? I know there is some fudging with broad match, because it can match plurals and related terms, so is there some funny business going on with exact match like that?

    If it really is just a lot of low-volume words at the beginning and end of each phrase that make up the phrase match vs. exact match discrepancy, and google is giving me the highest exact match phrase, then I just have to go with that. But if there is more going on, then I would like to know. Has anyone had similar experiences? Can anyone shed light on this mystery?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  2. Brent
    Administrator

    This is an incredibly insightful post!

    Want to know where your searches go?

    Check out:
    http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/?seed=trout+fishing&adult_filter=off&suggest=Hit+Me

    This uses the keyword "Trout Fishing", and shows you the spread of searches over the top 100 derivative phrases...

    Note how (in this example) only 114 searches use the precise keyword (exact match)...

    And if you scroll to the bottom, there are 959 searches for the top 100 derivatives (broad match)..

    And there are probably a dozen variations that don't mention the words "trout fishing" side-by-side in that order... These keywords are excluded when you're looking at phrase match!

    And finally, look at the spread of keywords!

    (I'm getting excited :P I'm a keyword nerd!)

    For every keyword, there are THOUSANDS of derivatives... MANY (around 50%) are only ever used ONCE... EVER...

    SOME are used more frequently than others.

    And some word orders are used more frequently.

    Obviously we can't optimize for ALL of these variations.

    So we have to pick one.

    So which one?

    We choose the one that is the best.

    We pick the word order that is most commonly used - that has the highest traffic primarily.

    (Or occasionally, we might pick a keyword that has good traffic, but low competition because it's easy to target).

    I hope this helps you out.

    Thank-you for such an insightful and well thought-out post!

    Brent

    Posted 1 year ago #

  3. ishabluebell
    Member

    Lol Brent! I thought "exact match" meant that the search term is in quotes! How many peeps really put "fuzzy cat pyjamas" in quotes?!

    I would have thought that was the reason for the discrepancy that momo is referring to.

    Have I misunderstood something?

    :-D

    Posted 1 year ago #

  4. ishabluebell
    Member

    or even "fuzzy cat pajamas"? (i didn't notice the spelling lol)

    Posted 1 year ago #

  5. Brent
    Administrator

    "Exact Match" isn't something that really applies to search results as much as search terms themselves.

    Yes, looking for "fuzzy cat pajamas" and only that word would be exact match.

    But how to optimize for various search terms (I thought) was the issue...

    What you should put in your Title Tags, and H1 tags, and META tags to attract the most people typing in a word Exact Matched, Phrase Matched and Broad Matched... Which one has the most traffic... How do you find out... I think that's the issue here.

    Or have I missed a key detail?

    Brent

    Posted 1 year ago #

  6. momo
    Member

    Brent,
    that was a great response, and definitely addressed my question. I have just been sitting on it for a couple of days, thinking about it and doing more research.

    I am blown away by the statistic that 50% of all searches are only used once(!) Is that from your own research, or is that something google released? Can you expand on that? (btw, you are helping me become a keyword nerd!)

    The wordtracker result was interesting - I have used it a long time ago, but haven't thought about it much since MS and google data was released. But it does seem to return a lot more derivatives than the google tool. On the other hand, it didn't give me much when I put in my real keywords (the ones that I am using fuzzy cat pajamas for), which surprised me, because those traffic numbers, I used in the example, which are quite high, are real.

    Interestingly, I just noticed the "Include adult content in my keyword results" option in the google keyword tool. I swear that wasn't there a week ago. I tried it out, and I do have some adult derivatives of my words that came up that I haven't noticed before (You would think I would have noticed adult-themed fuzzy cat pajamas : ). So that solves a little bit of the mystery. But still, for these keywords, I don't know what 98% of the actual searches are.

    I just put optimized for them two weeks ago, and they just showed up on page 2 and 3 of google. So we'll see what kind of traffic I actually get.

    thanks again for your great response.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  7. Terry
    Member

    The 50% of searches are only done once comes from a reliable source. Lol, StomperNet. I trust thos guys to know what they are doing. My stats pretty much say this is true. I'kk have pages and pages of terms that were only searched once and not worth optimizing for.

    One other thing, just because there are 7 million searches on something and you're at #1 doesn't mean you are going to get 7 million or even 700 thousand. Actualy experience is more like 7000.

    If you want the unique, 1 time searches, take the top twenty keyword phrases for that niche and delete all duplicatee then rebuild them to your best phrases and get all of those words into the first paragraph of your page. You'll end up with lots of traffic you wouldn't be able to optimize for.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  8. Brent
    Administrator

    @momo - This is based on the research of others (not Stompernet - but some other keyword nerds! ;)), and our own data.

    If you want to validate it, grab a few lists of keywords from Wordtracker, and monitor the ones that have "3 searches per day" over the next 90 days. Almost all of them will disappear the next time Wordtracker does a full data update.

    Re: Adult Content

    Yes, this feature was released recently inside the Google Keywords Tool.

    Previously, if you searched for an adult-related keyword, the Google keyword tool would not show any results. However, their filtering wasn't perfect.

    So, for example, if you searched for "Lesbian" (running a gay-lifestyle site), you would not get back any results.

    We haven't implemented any changes inside Market Samurai that would take advantage of the new features yet though.

    @Terry - very interesting tips! Thank-you.

    Brent

    Posted 1 year ago #

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