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Using Yahoo Search Assist for Keyword Research
October 19, 2007
In addition to using "typical" keyword research tools like WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, I frequently pop in to Google Suggest because I appreciate the quick interface and I like the "from the horse's mouth" approach to spotting keyword trends. While Google never really comes out and says it, I think it's defensible to suggest that the listings are ordered based on popularity. Here's a look at a Google Suggest query for [sports]:
A couple weeks ago, Yahoo announced Yahoo Search Assist, a tool similar to Google Suggest that helps refine and suggest queries based on what other people are searching for. Here is the resulting screen for a Yahoo Search Assist query for [sports]:
You should immediately see a critical difference in how the engines serve the suggestions. Google Suggest displays only those terms that begin with your search term.
Yahoo Search Assist shows terms and phrase that include your terms anywhere in the query. That's a huge improvement, and I hope Google Suggest takes a cue from that feature.
Both Google Suggest and Yahoo Search Assist contain a feature worth noting, and it can throw you if you're not paying attention. Typically, once you complete a word, that word disappears from the list of suggestions, because (I assume) the engine believes you're thinking beyond that single word. Here's a good example. At Yahoo, as you type the word vacation, you see the word vacations in the list of suggested queries:
But as soon as you completely type vacations, that term disappears from the list of suggestions:
As I said before, the same thing happens at Google. So if you typed too quickly, you might think the term "vacations" isn't popular. But nothing is further from the truth. So if you're doing quick, impromptu keyword research at either Google Suggest or Yahoo Search Assist, type slowly, because a lot can happen between keystrokes.
see all posts by Erik Dafforn
posted by Erik Dafforn at October 19, 2007 08:05 AM
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Comments
I'd say it's a pretty interesting observations you made! Personally I've never used this way of keyword research, as a rool WordTracker or Keyword Discovery.
I presume it'd be helpful to discover what Google and Yahoo suggest for my targeted KWs.
Many thanks!
Posted by: Julia at October 23, 2007 03:40 AM
i found a cool service that makes your blog
have something like that.
a demo on this blog :
http://tinyurl.com/2aaxvk
and start searching :)
www.predictad.com
Posted by: Dude at October 31, 2007 10:40 AM