Keyword Explorer shows wrong data

[Fred.Visnevsky]

Hi all,

Trying to figure out what is going on with the keyword explorer. All searches are made in the EN-US region.

Example keyword: app localization
Moz shows me that volume is 0-10, which is Wrong.

Actual volumes are in thousands per month.

Another keyword - translation service
Moz shows the volume as 2480 when actual volumes are in tens of thousands.

I can give many more examples like this - what is going on?

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[samantha.chapman]

Hi there,

Sam from Moz's Help Team here!

So our method of estimating keyword volume is a bit different from what you might  see elsewhere - for instance, in Google Keyword Planner.

While we do use Keyword Planner as one source for our volume data, we also use other sources, including anonymized clickstream data. If you're seeing large discrepancies, this is usually because our data goes through a disambiguation process. Basically, Google Keyword Planner currently bundles similar keywords into one overall volume metric. The problem is that most people want more specific data rather than a grouped number, so we strive to separate out the individual keyword volumes. You can read more about that here: https://moz.com/blog/google-keyword-unplanner-clickstream-data-to-the-rescue

This difference can be jarring, because often times you will have one keyword that is responsible for probably 95+% of the traffic and a bunch of others that make up the remaining number. The keywords with the smaller portion of the traffic appear to have a big discrepancy with Keyword Planner, when in fact their traffic volume is simply more accurate in our tool.

We have an excellent article here by Russ Jones, who designed our volume bucket methodologies, on why Keyword Planner data isn't ideal in the first place:
https://moz.com/blog/google-keyword-planner-dirty-secrets

Our tool strives to account for these issues and deliver better data.

For more information on how the tools compare, Britney Muller has written a great post you may also find useful:
https://moz.com/blog/moz-keyword-explorer-vs-google-keyword

I hope that clarifies things! If there's anything else you need help with, just let me know!