Google Trends vs. Overture Keyword Selector Tool

For years people have been using the Overture Keyword Selector as a fast and reliable way to determine which keywords they should be targeting in their search marketing campaigns. The problem is the data isn't’t very reliable anymore. If you look at just a piece of the search market – say real estate – and you compare Overture’s results to Google trends – you could end up targeting the wrong phrases.

Overture results for Las Vegas:
"Las Vegas Nevada real estate" estimated searches Sept 2006 = 306,204
"Las Vegas real estate" estimated searches Sept 2006 = 28,807

Overture claims "Las Vegas Nevada real estate" gets searched many more times then "Las Vegas real estate". Overture also says the same is true for most city state real estate terms.

Now, if you are a client and don’t fully understand how Overture is adding the search phrases to make broad matching possible, then you should always check your specific search phrases using Google trends. Just separate the two terms by a comma, and you will see how the stack up relative to each other. This should give you a better idea of which terms you should be targeting in your organic SEO campaigns.

Google trends results for Las Vegas:
Las Vegas real estate vs. Las Vegas Nevada real estate

Clearly "Las Vegas real estate" is the number one term my a large margin.