How is the keyword difficulty score calculated in SEOMoz?
-
The SEOMoz PRO tools provide a keyword difficulty score. How is this calculated? And is it a score for organic search competition or for PPC competition?
-
I'd like to chime in and request a formula too. maybe it's a secret because moz doesn't want competitors using this number... but then, it wouldn't take much (i assume) for someone to reverse engineer the score based on data inputs from moz.... so maybe it's not secret? if not, i'd reallllllllyyyy like to know.
interesting sidenote: i've noticed a range of about +/- 10 points on the difficulty score from a given domain authority with a domain's ability to rank for that keyword
-
Greetings Doug, I echo Mike's request. It would be wonderfully supportive of you or another staff member to give one (or more) examples on how "Domain Authority and Page Authority for the top 20 search results on Google".
I cannot simply present to my boss and say, "SEOMoz shows this keyword as 62% highly competitive." My boss is wise enough to ask, "Explain what 62% means. Show me how this applies."
Fair question.
One example from you in layperson terms would be highly appreciated. Then, I may replicate myself and thereby explain the value and origin of the measure.
Please "teach a person to fish ..."
Cheers, Loren
-
Thanks Joel, that helped
-
Hi Doug,
Is there any deeper information available other than "based on Domain and Page Authority"? How is it calculated? You may not know but how about any Mozzers?
Thanks
Mike
-
Ben, it's search competition based on the Domain Authority and Page Authority for the top 20 search results on Google. The score doesn't come from adwords, that's used for the search volumes.
The links on this page explain how Domain and Page authority is defined:
http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Joel's link provides a full run-down of the keyword analysis tool.
-
Straight from SEOMOZ
Where does your tool get its search volume data from?
For this tool, we get our search volume data from Google's AdWords API.http://www.seomoz.org/help/keyword-analysis
I hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Proper use of location in keywords
¿If I want to track keywords in a specific location, do I need to write the keyword with the location or only the keyword? For example: If I want to track the results of the keyword "hair salon" in a specific city, should I write "Hair salon in (city chosen) or only hair salon.
Keyword Research | | reginadelafuente0 -
Tools to group large list of keywords
Hi Guys, Was wondering if anyone knows of any tools which can group large lists of keywords. Currently using http://www.wordstream.com/keyword-grouper Any other good tools to check out? Cheers.
Keyword Research | | jayoliverwright0 -
Keyword research tool - for off site results
New to Moz, and after playing with keyword research, it seems very comprehensive for analysing keywords based on my site content, and showing me how many people are visiting based on those keywords. However what I'm really looking for is 'alternative' keywords that are 'not' on my site, but still relevant to my sector, and how many searchers are using those. basic example My site is optimised for 'soccer for kids' which Moz shows me getting 50 hits for. Google KW tool reports that every month there are over 2000 searches for 'football for kids' Because my site has no mention of 'Football', Moz doesn't show this as an alternative KW Admittedly my site is new in Moz, so do I just wait a bit longer? or do I continue to use Google KW tool? I'm sure I'm missing the obvious. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | petenorris0 -
Keyword Difficulty: Temporary problem gathering Analysis data
I did two searches using the difficulty tool. On the third run report, I encountered an error with a message that there was a temporary problem gathering Analysis data. It said that I should wait 20 minutes and try again. I have experienced errors with other keyword difficulty tools. I wonder how intermittent this problem is. Is the error known.
Keyword Research | | samueltb0 -
Using a country in your keywords
My company has recently started offering services in South Africa - which is great - same language - lot of potential there. But I suspect our keyword research is suffering from "thinking like a foreigner". i.e. "buy cars South Africa" rather than "buy cars". Wouldn't google.co.za naturally assume: 1) Anyone using their service for "buy cars" is looking for "buy cars South Africa" (I know it's more complicated - Google will give different results the more it can figure out about your location) 2) That any co.za site optimised for "buy cars" is automatically 90% optimised for "buy cars South Africa" too - so isn't a productive long tail query (against something like “buy sports cars”) I appreciate that some companies will be TARGETING foreign browsers (i.e. holiday accommodation South Africa) so will need to explicitly optimise their on-site for the country for “foreign search engines”. But I'm asking about companies in South Africa targeting people from South Africa.
Keyword Research | | Ali310 -
How should I use keywords in a sentence?
The keywords that I target are phrases that wouldn't ever be used in a sentence... Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia My question is... Is it better to use the phrase, even though its odd? Ex: Stained Concrete Virginia is a great product Or is it better to make it a natural sentence? Ex: Stained Concrete in Virginia is a great product? Im trying to find a way to use my keyword phrases at least 4 times in the content of the pages...but it seems difficult if I have to use such an odd phrase. Thanks! Tim
Keyword Research | | Timvroom0 -
Please help with SEO keyword research
Hi Moz community, I would like to request your collective wisdom. I'm new to SEO and putting together an SEO research and strategy document for the employment service I work for. Have solid skills in Google Adwords and have ran a campaign over the last two years with excellent results. But this SEO thing is a whole new world! That's why who better to turn to than the leading community for SEO professionals? 🙂 Any support, advice, tips would be most welcomed appreciated. It's an employment service and I've got a list of keywords. For example, here are some of the action words I thought could be useful: <colgroup><col width="215"> <col width="91"> <col width="65"></colgroup> [find staff] 0.79 73 [find employees] 0.97 73 [looking for staff] 0.94 58 [looking for staff] 0.94 58 [staff wanted] 0.62 58 [looking for employees] 0.94 46 [look for work] 0.77 36 [looking for workers] 0.93 36 [find workers] 0.91 36 [employee search] 0.72 28 [staff search] 0.37 28 [find an employee] 0.79 22 [search for employees] 0.71 12 [find a worker] 0.66 12 [how to find employees] 0.71 12 My questions: Where to from here? If this was a Google Adwords campaign I would place the words in, create ad copy and test response. But with SEO, are these words useful? Can you target all of these words with SEO - or am I better finding words with higher volume? How many words should I be looking to target? For example, am I only trying to find the 5 or 10 highest volume words, or is it important to target lots of words with SEO? Is it just one set of keywords per page, or can I target all the above keywords on one page? I'm a bit lost. Thanks in advance for your consideration.
Keyword Research | | jasonlewisdiiigy0 -
Duplicated string in the google keyword tool
Is it possible that the google keyword tool is wrong? It's the first time I realize that for many keywords the google keyword tool reports a big volume of searchs for a keyword as if it were tiped two times. In some cases, as the attached image, it's the same volume, in other cases is even bigger the one with the duplicated string What should I think of that, that, "champagne champagne" has really 4 million searchs? if champagnechampagne.com were an available domain name, should it be a good idea for a microsite? Thank you! t9Jwn.png
Keyword Research | | gvnns0