Frequently Asked Questions Home > Support > FAQ: Keywords

General

1. Can I add keywords from a text file?
2. Can I select other search engines to request for keyword suggestions?
3. Can I select regional search engines on the "View competitors" tab?
4. Google (Bing, Yahoo...) shows large numbers for the keyword I`m trying to research with the help of Web CEO; your Keywords tool, on the other hand, reports only a few searches. Why?
5. How do I know if the KEI is good or bad?
6. How do you get suggestions on the "1. Explore niche" tab?
7. How do you get your "Monthly world searches" number?
8. How often is your keyword database updated?
9. I don`t want to have Alexa Traffic Rank (Google PR, estimated clicks per day) in the "Advanced Analysis" report. How can I remove them?
10. I have the Professional/SmallBiz edition of Web CEO. Why do I get only 5 keyword suggestions?
11. I want to research keywords suggested on the first tab. Is there an easy way to move them to the `Get Suggestions` tab?
12. Is there any way that I can get the program to report results that are specific to search engines in my region/language?
13. The number of searches per day may change. How do I update baskets with the selected keywords?
14. What do I need Google Traffic Estimator data for?
15. Where do you get keywords from?
16. Why are the numbers of competitors on the "Get suggestions" tab different from those on the "View competitors" tab?
17. Why are your results so different from those of Google Keywords Tool?
18. Why can`t I find keyphrases in my native language?
19. Why does the program find no combinations with my keyword (<10)?
20. Why is the "Analyze competition" tab grayed out?

Q: Can I add keywords from a text file?

A: Yes. Follow these steps:

1. On the 'Get Suggestions' tab, click 'Add from file' and browse your hard drive for the text file with keywords.

2. Select the file and click 'Open'. The keywords should appear in the 'Keywords' field.

3. Click 'Start' to get results.

Note: in this case, the program does not search for combinations; it returns only exact matches to the key phrases added from a text file.

Q: Can I select other search engines to request for keyword suggestions?

A: The program queries Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You can unselect ones you don't want, but at least one of the three search engines must be selected.

Click 'Options' (bottom right) to change settings. You can unselect search engines and change the number of pages to get the keywords from.

Q: Can I select regional search engines on the "View competitors" tab?

A: By default, Google, Yahoo and Bing are included into the list. But all search engines available to the Ranking Checker can also be used in Keywords, so you can choose the ones you need.

Click 'Organize SEs' and select a search engine from the list.
You can select search engines based on country or language. Check 'Show checked only' to filter out all but your regional search engines.
The selected search engines will be available in the 'Search engine' drop-down list.

Note: you can select language-specific search engines using the 'Select by Language' menu.

Q: Google (Bing, Yahoo...) shows large numbers for the keyword I`m trying to research with the help of Web CEO; your Keywords tool, on the other hand, reports only a few searches. Why?

A: When you are searching Google or any other search engine for a word or phrase, the results are the pages found that contain these keywords. The numbers reported at the top of the results pages are the number of pages where this word or phrase is found.

Our Keywords tool, in contrast, reports the number of searches done using those keywords. Google counts pages, our Keywords tool counts searches. The number of search phrases people use to search the engine is normally much fewer than the number of pages with the keyword found by search engines in their indices.

Some search engines collect queries to their databases and provide them as a live search feature. Web CEO collects the words and phrases that users type into their search boxes to query some search engines, such as Google, MetaCrawler.com, Excite.com, Sharelook, Lycos and others – 35 search engines in total.

Q: How do I know if the KEI is good or bad?

A: The formula for KEI is KEI = ((MS/30)^2/C) , where MS is the number of monthly world searches and C is the competition. The KEI ranges from 0 to over 400.

< 0.001 = Poor keyword
0.002 - 0.010 = Good Keyword
0.011 - 0.100+ = Excellent Keyword

The higher the KEI ratio, the more popular your keywords are (more people are searching with those keywords), and the less competition they have (fewer web sites come up as relevant results in search engine results pages).

Q: How do you get suggestions on the "1. Explore niche" tab?

A: The program queries the major search engines for the entered keyword and obtains several results pages. It then requests the contents of the Meta keywords tags of the top-listed pages and generates a list of found keyword combinations.

You can move the most popular phrases to the top of the list by clicking on the Frequency column.

Q: How do you get your "Monthly world searches" number?

A: 'Monthly World Searches' is the number of times a keyword is predicted to be searched for on all search engines. We extrapolate the data from our database to the monthly search requests across the Web. Our knowledge is based on search engine ratings provided by a number of respected Internet researchers as well as our own aggregated Web stats data; we have found that search engines receive about 385,000,000 search requests every day.

By comparing the portion of searches we have in our database to the estimated number of world daily searches, we are able to calculate the complex multiplier used to predict how many times each particular word or phrase is being searched for each month across the Web.

How do we do this? We take collections from the most recent three months. Our current database includes about 130,000,000 search terms. While we would like to be able to collect daily searches on all existing search engines, it is just impossible; many of the search engines don't even provide such information.

Q: How often is your keyword database updated?

A: We have been adding new keywords daily. At the same time, we remove search terms older than 12 weeks. This makes the database up-to-date and guarantees quick inclusion of new and seasonal search terms. The total refresh cycle of our keyword database takes about 12 weeks.

Q: I don`t want to have Alexa Traffic Rank (Google PR, estimated clicks per day) in the "Advanced Analysis" report. How can I remove them?

A: The 'Advanced Analysis' report is customizable. There is only one item that cannot be removed: the key phrase. All other items can be changed or removed.

Click on the 'Options' button on the bottom right to

- Include/remove the number of pages with keywords anywhere on the page
- Include/remove the number of pages with keywords in the title tag
- Include/remove the number of daily searches
- Include/remove the KEI
- Select/unselect positions of the top 10 sites to see their link popularity
- Select/unselect positions of the top 10 sites to see their Alexa Traffic Rank
- Select/unselect estimated Google search volume, average CPC, average clicks per day, cost per day, and countries / languages you wish to view these values for
- Select/unselect positions of the top 10 sites to see their Google PageRank

Q: I have the Professional/SmallBiz edition of Web CEO. Why do I get only 5 keyword suggestions?

A: The Keyword Research tool uses data supplied via the Search Engine Pulse service.

When you order one of the paid editions, you get 90 days of free support. After that you will be switched to the free version of the Keyword Research tool (5 keyword per run), however, at any time you can subscribe to the Search Engine Pulse service and get up to 1,000 keywords per run (Professional) or up to 50 keywords per run (SmallBiz).

In case you would like to get the full-featured Keyword suggestion tool back, please extend your KB subscription. Visit our pricing page to see the options for the KB subscription.

Q: I want to research keywords suggested on the first tab. Is there an easy way to move them to the `Get Suggestions` tab?

A: On the 'Explore Niche' tab, select the keywords you wish to move. Click 'Get Suggestions', and the program will immediately analyze your keywords and provide the results.

Note: if you have selected several keywords, the program will search for the exact matches. If one keyword or phrase is selected, the program will give a list of combinations.

Q: Is there any way that I can get the program to report results that are specific to search engines in my region/language?

A: At this point, we do not offer such a service. However, we are considering keyword database segmentation based on a region or language for future versions of Web CEO.

In the current version of the program, you can analyze Google Traffic Estimator data (search volume, CPC, average clicks/day, and average cost/day) for your targeted language or region. You can also set the currency to display the bids in. To do this, go to 'Analyze Competition', click the 'Options' button, and select countries and/or languages of interest in the 'Google Traffic Estimator' section.

Q: The number of searches per day may change. How do I update baskets with the selected keywords?

A: On the 'Get Suggestions' tab, click on the arrow next to 'Start', or right-click anywhere in the basket, and select 'Refresh keyword data in basket'. The data for all keywords in the selected basket will be updated.

Q: What do I need Google Traffic Estimator data for?

A: The Google Traffic Estimator data available in the Analyze Competition tab will help you predict search volumes, average cost-per-click, possible number of clicks per day and cost per day for the keywords chosen. Note that all values are calculated according to the unlimited budget.

You can also select languages and locations you target, and set the currency to display the bids in. It is especially useful if your site is not in English, and/or you plan to advertise it to audience in a specific country. The default choice is English, USD and 'All countries and territories'.

Click 'Options' (bottom right) and go to 'Google Traffic Estimator' to change the settings for these parameters.

Q: Where do you get keywords from?

A: Web CEO collects queries from several search engines including Google, MetaCrawler.com, Excite.com, MetaEureka.com, Dogpile, Lycos, and others. Altogether we use queries from 35 search engines.

Q: Why are the numbers of competitors on the "Get suggestions" tab different from those on the "View competitors" tab?

A: We take the number of competitors on the 'View competitors' tab from Google. We provide the KEI on the 'Get suggestions' tab. To do it, we calculate the KEI numbers and store them in the database along with the search term.

To speed up data delivery, we do not calculate the KEI simultaneously with your request, but instead we update the competition and so the KEI with a certain time delay. Otherwise, we'd be handling many simultaneous requests (returning combinations with KEI and the competition) and we would compromise the speed of our program; the processes would be very long.

This is why the number of competitors for a specific search term shown in the Competition column can differ from the current value returned by Google.

Q: Why are your results so different from those of Google Keywords Tool?

A: There are a number of reasons why Web CEO results differ from Google Keywords Tool.

First, we cover different areas of the Internet. Web CEO collects search terms from 35 search engines, and Google Keywords Tool uses its own aggregated data gathered from Google searches.

Second, we use different methods. Web CEO extrapolates the data from our database to the monthly search requests across the web. By comparing the portion of searches in our database to the estimated number of world monthly searches, we can calculate the multiplier used to predict how many times each particular word or phrase is being searched for across the web. We take into account the three months' collections. Our current database includes about 130,000,000 search terms.

Q: Why can`t I find keyphrases in my native language?

A: At this time, most available search engines are based in English. Unfortunately, if English is not your native language, you may have trouble researching keywords.

Web CEO collects queries from several search engines, including Google, Excite.com, Kanoodle, MetaEureka.com, Dogpile, and Lycos. We use a total of 35 search engines. Although there are some German, French, Italian, and Spanish search engines, we are limited in the languages that we can utilize in our Keyword suggestion tool.

If you know of a regional search engine that provides search terms as a 'Live search' function in your language, please give us its URL, and we'll be happy to include it.

Q: Why does the program find no combinations with my keyword (<10)?

A: There could be a number of reasons for this.

1. You may be searching for a word or phrase in a language not supported by Web CEO. Web CEO collects search terms from 35 search engines. There may not be any search engines available in your language.
2. You may have entered a phrase made up of two or more words, and the program can't find many combinations with all of these words. Choose one main word from your key phrase. The program is more likely to give results with some combinations included.
3. If you have a keyboard with non-Latin characters, you may have entered a keyword using the wrong keyboard layout; as a result, the program can't properly identify the character encoding. Make sure you switch your keyboard to English if you are entering an English word.

Q: Why is the "Analyze competition" tab grayed out?

A: This indicates that you are using the Free edition of Web CEO. The "Analyze competition" report is only available to the users of the higher editions.

If you are interested in what such a report looks like, however, you can see an example. There is a screenshot and a detailed explanation included in the Web CEO Help topics. Select "Help topics" on the Help menu and go to 'Part I. How do you promote your site' > `Step 1. Research keywords' > 'Sub-step 4: Get a deeper insight into your competition'.

If you really need this report, you should think of upgrading to the SmallBiz or Professional edition of Web CEO. We provide a money-back guarantee, so you do not risk anything.