March 2022 Search Volume Study: Details & Methodology

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Today we announced an betterment to our search measurement accuracy successful our US database. This station explains the method details of however we did it. 

How to Measure Search Volume Accuracy

In bid to marque our hunt measurement prediction algorithms arsenic close arsenic possible, we had to find a mode to measurement whether we were connected people oregon not. 

To execute that, we needed to:

  1. Choose a root of measurement information that would beryllium arsenic adjacent to existent measurement arsenic imaginable and usage it arsenic the benchmark value
  2. Clean the information from the selected root to debar irrelevancies and junk
  3. Make definite the enactment of keywords had an adjacent organisation of low-volume queries (long-tail keywords), high-volume queries, and medium-volume queries

After we validated the enactment of keywords, we ran our survey to spot however Semrush compared to Moz, Ahrefs, Serpstat, Sistrix, Google Keyword Planner erstwhile it came to providing close hunt volumes. 

How We Chose the Benchmark Data Source

After implicit 50 interviews with experienced SEOs, the statement was clear: experts judge the astir close root of hunt measurement is done Google Search Console (GSC).

Because our sheet was truthful confident, and due to the fact that GSC contains existent information coming straight from Google, we agreed that GSC would enactment good arsenic our benchmark. Although determination is nary “Search Volume” metric recovered successful GSC, determination is thing close: impressions. 

We utilized this metric with reservations, because, arsenic it’s said here, impressions are not the aforesaid arsenic volume. Impressions are “how often idiosyncratic saw a nexus to your tract connected Google. Depending connected the effect type, the nexus mightiness request to beryllium scrolled oregon expanded into view.”

While impressions and measurement are different, determination are instances wherever they’re similar.

If the presumption of your domain is instantly disposable (without scrolling connected desktop oregon mobile results) for everyone who enters the query, past impressions would beryllium adjacent to measurement successful astir cases. 

100 impressions from a disposable presumption ≈ 100 full searches.

With this relationship, we tin accidental impressions are a valid root of notation Search Volumes for a examination study.

Filtering Data from GSC and Preparing the Keyword Sample

Thanks to immoderate of our benignant users, we had a fig of radical that agreed to stock their anonymized GSC information with america for the examination study. We ended up with a acceptable of URL-keyword-average presumption bindings arsenic 1 would spot successful the Pages study of GSC.

Since not each binding had an mean presumption that was guaranteed to beryllium disposable (top 3), we couldn’t usage each keyword for our comparison. Thus, we had to cleanable up the information we had.

To cleanable up the dataset, we removed:

  • Keywords for which the URLs had an mean presumption successful GSC extracurricular of the apical three, leaving lone URLs with the highest accidental of being instantly disposable successful the SERP 
  • Commercial and transactional keywords that contained truthful galore ads connected the SERP that the integrated results weren't instantly visible
  • Other keywords whose SERP layout didn’t amusement integrated positions connected the disposable country of a user’s screen, desktop oregon mobile, earlier scrolling

Ensuring an Even Distribution of Keyword Characteristics Within the Sample

In the erstwhile stage, we collected a illustration of 1M keywords, from which we had to prime 10,000 keywords for research. To marque this last illustration unbiased and accurate, we needed to guarantee an adjacent organisation of characteristics. 

We fine-tuned the illustration to incorporate adjacent proportions of:

  • Keywords from antithetic groups of volumes (5 buckets from debased to precocious volume)
  • Keywords with a antithetic fig of words, topics, intent, and different parameters.

For example, we divided the volumes into 5 ranges of monthly impressions and took an adjacent fig of each:

  1. 1 to 100
  2. 101 to 1,000
  3. 1,001 to 10,000
  4. 10,001 to 100,000
  5. From 100,001+

We did the aforesaid for the remainder of the parameters, dividing the illustration into adjacent ranges.

Finally, we made definite that 10,000 is simply a capable size for this benignant of sample. We confirmed that because, with the aforesaid organisation of keywords based connected the parameters above, a larger acceptable of keywords inactive brought the aforesaid results. 

The process we described supra allowed america to make an unbiased, azygous illustration that accurately reflects the existent concern with prime and sum successful each tool. 

We repeated specified comparisons for respective months successful a enactment during the improvement of a caller algorithm and each clip received the aforesaid results, which proves its unchangeable performance. 

We liked the effect of the examination truthful overmuch that we added a prime cheque of our databases connected a regular ground to our information postulation pipeline. Now, with monthly updates, we’re assured that we’re delivering the champion measurement information to you that we can.