Calculating Search Volume
Searchmetrics regularly gathers search volume data from Google – both directly and via multiple
partners. Search volume in Research Cloud always reflects the total search volume (across all device
types) in the given country.
This results in data points. Each data point consists of:
- a date,
- last 12 months of search volume,
- a keyword.
(Data on CPC and competition is included as well but does not play into search volume calculation.)
We then combine all these data points to calculate the search volume. Roughly speaking we build a
weighted average over all data points, where the more recent data points are given a higher weight.
Why do we calculate our own search volume instead of blindly trusting Google?
- Sometimes Google gets it wrong and changes search volume for previous months. This is
probably caused when they filter out bot traffic that is for example generated by SEOs trying
to manipulate Google Autocomplete. - Google sometimes wrongly returns search volumes of 0 or near 0 for keywords where we
know this is not correct. If we check again a month later, they have fixed this. This are most
likely glitches on Google’s side. - Google does not deliver search volume for certain topics (like tobacco). Since we have
historic search volume for these we do not just want to change that to 0.
Repairing Search Volume
Then we repair search volume in cases where we do not trust Google. This is necessary because a)
Google is clustering together certain terms like “SEO” and “Search Engine Optimization” and only
returns a combined search volume, and b) Google is clustering misspelling like “Facbook”,
“Facebook~” and “F a c e b o o k” together with “Facebook”.