Google Suggest vs Overture, why the huge difference in numbers?

[lakruwan]

Can anyone explain to me why Google suggest shows such massive search volume numbers when compared to overture?
(i.e web design, overture:175591, Google Suggest:293,000,000)

I know overture has been around for a long time but at the same time Google gets a lot more traffic. Do the two numbers have a relationship or are they just estimates from different measurement scales.

[bdw]

They are drawing their data from different sources and Google has more data.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

What is Google Suggest and does it display numbers of search volumes?
I only knew of the adwords suggestion tool, which doesn't display any numbers but only relative search volumes. I just read the FAQ of Google Suggest (and think I had heard about it before), but it doesnt say anything about displaying search volumes?

Maybe you should check the search volume for web design on freekeywords.wordtracker.com - about 270,000 / month. I would say they're sort of in line with the overture results. But I have no idea of what 'Google Suggest' is really.

[lakruwan]

I am familiar with overture and word tracker and they are quite clear about the number they come up with, i.e searches per day in a certain region. I'm not quite clear about the numbers Google Suggest gives out. It just says "120,000,000" results.
Is this the number of searches for the previous month? Is it only in the US or are these figures global?
Or are they just a number to gauge the popularity of a certain key word or phrase compared to similar keywords or phrases? (i.e "web design" vs "website design")

For those who don't know about it. Just search for "Google Suggest".

[beu]

I am familiar with overture and word tracker and they are quite clear about the number they come up with, i.e searches per day in a certain region. I'm not quite clear about the numbers Google Suggest gives out. It just says "120,000,000" results.
Is this the number of searches for the previous month? Is it only in the US or are these figures global?
Or are they just a number to gauge the popularity of a certain key word or phrase compared to similar keywords or phrases? (i.e "web design" vs "website design")

For those who don't know about it. Just search for "Google Suggest".

"Results" are different than "search volume"!

I think you want "search volume" and for that you should visit "Google Trends".

google.com/trends?q=web+design%2C+website+design

Maybe also check out:
adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

[lakruwan]

i'm not sure i understand the difference between "search results" and "search volume"

Google trends and the Google keyword suggestion tools are ok, but i need something with figures. A colored bar is not really a big help when compared with figures.

let me re-phrase my question. What does number "results" in Google Suggest mean?

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

I'm not a 100% sure but, I've only heard of Google suggest as a tool, that can give you ideas for related keyword phrases, not their search volumes.

And usually it's like this:

search volume = number of times users have search for a keyword phrase

search results = number of pages, that show up for a certain keyword phrase, when you do a search.

Google trends and the Google keyword suggestion tools are ok, but i need something with figures. A colored bar is not really a big help when compared with figures.

I used to think this, too. However, you should get used to the fact, that those keyword tools can't pinpoint the number of times a keyword phrase has been searched for. They only make an estimation and then display it in numbers. However this numerical value should only be taken with a grain of salt, too. I've read overture's numbers are sometimes inflated by a factor greater then tenfold.

I also know a personal example of somebody who went for a term, that supposedly got > 1,000 searches/day on overture. He has the #3 spot for it on Google and receives about 15 new visitors per month. He should be getting around 1,500 at a click through rate of about 5% for the #3 spot in the Google SERPs (as in Germany Google's market share is > 90%).

However had he checked the colored bar on Google, too and gotten a bit of a "feel" for it (how the colored bar compares to overture's and wordtracker's numbers, etc.) & would have used common sense (it was a German&English keyword phrase, but common sense could have told him few Germans would actually type in such a word), he would have realized, that overture's numbers were an extreme overestimation of the actual searches.

You should use all the keyword tools you have at your disposal AND your common sense (can this really be a frequent search term or does it look suspicious?). Then look at all the numbers and colored bars and take them as nothing, but a (great) indication/estimation of the actual search volumes.

- spoke a guy who absolutely loves numbers, data & pinpointing just about anything ;-).

I was in the same boat wanting exact numbers badly, but it isn't really possible. And once you get a feel for how the colored bar of the adwords suggestion tool compares to the estimations by overture and wordtracker, you'll find it as useful a tool as overture/wordtracker. Or well at least I do, by now.

I always use these 2 free tools to check if a keyword phrase's search volumes are in line with one another:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com (multiply the number by 30 for the monthly search volume)

http://inventory.overture.com (multiply the number by 5, because yahoo has 20% market share)

If they have a similar search volume (if it differs by factor 2 or 3, dont be surprised. It's still "similar", not far off) I also use the adwords suggestion tool to make sure that colored bar displays a similar result (after using all those tools for a while you'll get a feel for the colored bar from the adw. suggestion tool)

Hope this helps?

[beu]

i'm not sure i understand the difference between "search results" and "search volume"

Google trends and the Google keyword suggestion tools are ok, but i need something with figures. A colored bar is not really a big help when compared with figures.

let me re-phrase my question. What does number "results" in Google Suggest mean?

Overture's tool leaves out plurals for example type in "vacation" and you find no use of the keyword "vacations". This factor is due to Overture's tool being used for paid search.

Google suggest provides "results" across all of search and is not limited only to paid search.

"Search volume" indicates the number of queries preformed for an exact keyword and/or keyword phrase.

"Search results" indicate the number of potential matches there are for a query.

For example every few years there is an increase in the "search volume" of queries for the keyword term "lame duck". However, not all of those users are searching for information related to "duck hunting".

"Search results" include cases where "duck" and "lame" are "near neighbors" within page content.

Does that help?

[lakruwan]

thanks for explanations guys, i think i got the point.

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

I'd like to add:

Google suggest provides "results" across all of search and is not limited only to paid search. as the higher the search volume for a keyword phrase, the more attractive it looks to a potential bidder :-). (Also there are a couple of other factors, that lead to inflation of overture's data)

"Search results" indicate the number of potential matches there are for a query.

I was about to type: "Is there any difference between matches & pages?", but then you go on to explain, that

"Search results" include cases where "duck" and "lame" are "near neighbors" within page content.

I have never really thought about this, but do they really have to be near neighbors for Google to turn up a page as result? Say, you had a page with the word abc at the beginning and the word xyz at the very end and it was the only such page on the internet. If you typed in abc xyz into the Google search box, wouldn't that page show up due to those two kw-phrases not being "near neighbors"? Or would it depend on the number of pages/matches available for such a search - if there is no alternative that page would show up, if there are plenty alternatives, though, it would not show up in the SERPs, because the keywords aren't near neighbors?
(just curious)

[beu]

I have never really thought about this, but do they really have to be near neighbors for Google to turn up a page as result? Say, you had a page with the word abc at the beginning and the word xyz at the very end and it was the only such page on the internet. If you typed in abc xyz into the Google search box, wouldn't that page show up due to those two kw-phrases not being "near neighbors"?
All things being equal in most cases no, unless the words are the name of the website and/or themselves unique. (ie misspelled)
Or would it depend on the number of pages/matches available for such a search - if there is no alternative that page would show up, if there are plenty alternatives, though, it would not show up in the SERPs, because the keywords aren't near neighbors?
(just curious)
I think you have got it!

By the way, Google's founders mastered this idea 12 years ago.

see:
infolab.stanford.edu/~sergey/near.html