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mvandemar
Ok, so, somehow I missed the fact that you can change your country for the Keyword Tool External. You cannot opt out of the search network, however.
The article argues that he recived traffic from sites that were parked and other search sites that appear in google's advertising network. Why was this tested on a campaign that was receiving international traffic, traffic from the search network and traffic from parked domains?
Because you cannot opt out of those factors in the keyword tool external, which is what the post was about, Chris.
You seem to be of the mind that I signed up as an affiliate to those sites, and then fabricated something to blog about. Those links were an afterthought. If you personally choose to believe that they invalidate the post, then fine, I could actually care less. Like I said before, feel free to run whatever tests you want disproving what I said.
Then perhaps you should test for yourself Chris. I wasn't simply posting some random opinion, I was posting based on actual experience using the tool and experimentation.
@usaexpressmoving - it wasn't just the fact that you couldn't (or at least I thought you couldn't) limit by region, it was a combination of factors. The The fact that they include a much wider array of sources than just Google was my main point... if you optimize for and get to the #1 position in Google.com for your target phrase, you still won't get anywhere near what that tool predicts you will.
Yes, you can still glean something from it, insofar as if a term does *not* show, then for sure it's not worth pursuing. But like I said in the post, the thing that had originally clued me into the numbers being way off was when I used it myself for that purpose, got 3 phrases ranked well, and wound up with 5 clicks over a 3 month period.
Jill is right... regardless of the tool, you cannot take the numbers at face value 100%.
@DarrenSlatten - I very specifically addressed the relativity of the numbers, and why you cannot simply overestimate across the board. 9th paragraph:
Now, while you might be tempted to do so, you cannot just reduce it down and say, "Ok, just take the number the Keyword Tool shows, and multiply it by 5.68%”. The keywords weren't distributed at all evenly in that way. [best friend poems], for instance, didn't receive any official Google traffic during this test.
I know that's the most common way to compensate for inaccuracies in all of the keyword tools out there, so wanted to make sure I discussed it.
Ha! I love the video they chose to embed! :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD21JDMp86c
Ha! 1 day shy of you staying under the radar for a full *year* and you get busted. :P
Btw, your post is the complete opposite of what I just posted on this exact subject:
http://sphinn.com/story/59089
Also, the site in my profile is for contact information only. Did you check the robots.txt file? I didn't think so. Since "I feel" it offers no value to the search engines, I did what is best, Disallowed it. I would think any Professional Internet Marketer would do that, yes?
Actually, no, even for a site that is no more than an online business card you should take care in what gets seen. With the huge amount of designers who actually have skill in the community, and the number of them who are actually willing to give free advice in the form of "review my site" forums out there, there really is no excuse.
I would post on SEORefugee, cre8, or wmw asking for advice.
Story: Happy 1st Birthday, Sphinn!
Ok, Burgo and Halfdeck, I wasn't engaging in any kind of flame war. Michael didn't call me a dumbass or say that I didn't know what I was talking about, or that I was an jerk... he didn't post opinions of me, which is something he would of course have a right to do.
What he *did* do is outright lie, claiming that I did things that simply never happened. All I did was to simply post links and quotes showing what was actually said.
And believe it or not, that is a valuable anti-lesson in reputation management online. This actually happens quite a bit. Anyone ever hear of Starposition/Robert Sexton?
Btw... his post with the flame about me (which was an actual flame) is sitting on the front page.
Dude, reputation management IS part of the marketing industry, and trying to counter verifiable facts is not the way to go about it. You're continuing to call it a flame does not make it so. Get over it already.
Yeah... did nobody notice this is from July 2007? Caused quite a stir back then, too.
Story: 14 Steps to Super SEO Status
Ok, only thing I have to say on this has to do with the comments, not the post... HTML and CSS are not programming.
That's all. :)
I'm surprised Jason, or Great Mans Job, hasn't signed up for Sphinn under multiple aliases and voted everyone down the way he thumbed down comments on SEOmoz initially.
I'm pretty sure that he did in fact do that.
The prosecuter make a completely incorrect statement:
"How many times you do something doesn't necessarily speak to standards and values," he said.
Of course it does. That's exactly why if you endorse one set of values publicly but don't apply them to yourself it's "double standards".
I think that the defense attorney has a good shot with this one, if he's careful and doesn't let the prosecuter get away with statements like that.
It's been like this for as long as I know.
What gets me is that I do filter out my own sites, and even though those are the only ones I ever filtered out, for ages Google always sent me the exact same "tip" to make more money:
November 2007 Optimization Report:
You may be filtering ads that monetize well on your site.
:)
Why did you post to a category on your blog, and use the generic blog title, instead of pointing to a specific post using a proper title?
Is this really Google's SEO company?
if you dont want Google doing tihs block them from your website.
You're saying that if you don't want Google sharing your traffic data you should remove your site from their index? That's your solution?
Damn, almost de-sphunn for the misleading use of the word "borderline" in the description. :P
@Brian - you are talking about what would "make sense" to you, and what "you would do if you were Google", not what Google actually does. Your "more likely" scenario is simply a guess, and happens to be wrong.
Look at what G did to money.co.uk. Did they simply "kill the link love" of all the links generated from the link bait that went viral? No. They smacked their happy asses down in the serps, and they smacked em down hard. It's a repeated pattern that we've seen over and over again. I have no clue why people keep insisting on repeating the same thing about what Google will "probably" do when we can clearly see otherwise.
Matt said that they just turned this on in the past day or so to start crawling .0's, but I see results using [filetype:0] that go as far back as April 18th:
cache:http://trac.mu.wordpress.org/browser/tags/release-1.0?rev=1010
I mean, it does have addl params after the filetype, but so do many downloadable .exe's out there as well. And what about all of the .xpi filetypes? Firefox runs those, don't they count?
[filetype:xpi]
Actually, what he highlighted said "pre teen nude girls". Technically though, even that is not inherently illegal (it depends on the context, has to match the obscenity laws as well), although I'm sure they use that anchor text in hopes of attracting people looking for what would be considered illegal.
As I pointed out in the comments on the blog though (awaiting moderation atm), it's not safe to click on any links in a hacked blog like that, doesn't matter what the anchor text says.
I think that "Pre teen nude girls" are pre teenage age. Hence the "illegal" element.
I myself know what you meant Chris, I was just pointing out that images of nudity itself is not illegal in the US, regardless of age. There has to be an element of obsenity to it.
Heh, I don't think that is a word, but I get your point. :)
They did say they would be updating them from time to time, and people should check back. I just didn't think it was gonna be this fast. Only reason I knew is because I get an email when it updates. I wonder if I should start a mailing list for that...
Story: Why The Google Keyword Tool Is Useless For SEO, Even With Exact Numbers