Wordtracker launches UK keyword tool for search marketers

Posted 13 February 2007 16:22pm by Graham Charlton with 4 comments

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WordTracker has launched a UK version of its keyword search tool, allowing marketers access to UK-specific research in order to adjust their keywords to the market.

Wordtracker's UK specific keyword search has been incorporated into the company's subscription service, which is priced at between £4.20 for a day's access to £140 for a year, and is used by many search marketing professionals.

The service gets its keyword data from ISPs, coupled with an algorithm used to eliminate spam / bot activity to reflect real search behaviour.

According to CEO Andy Mindel:

"We then extract duplicate queries, robotic queries and generally de-spam the data. The extraction process is a lengthy one but we're left with high quality keywords that represent just 0.038% of the original log files."

The dataset that Wordtracker pulls its results from is a relatively small sample, and Wordtracker then uses a formula to estimate the daily search volume for a given keyword.

The service is simple to use, and returns results from the past 90 days for the keyword you put in, as well as related searches. A free version is also available which is handy to use as a brainstorming tool, though the subscription version returns a far greater level of detail.

There are other keyword research tools out there. Overture's keyword selector tool offers similar results to Wordtracker, but doesn't return UK specific results, while the Google Adwords tool offers UK results but doesn't list search volumes.

As Search Engine Watch points out, until search engines give marketers direct access their search data, Wordtracker remains the most accurate keyword discovery tool on the market.

Yet no self-respecting spam-fearing search engine is ever going to unlock its data. Google Trends is probably the closest thing to a compromise currently available (although it doesn't return absolute values, just indicative comparisons).

We believe that using a combination of these tools is the best approach. You can also look at your on-site search data (especially in instances where no results are returned), to plug gaps, as well as the likes of Wordtracker, Overture's tool, Google Trends, and even Google Suggest.