The Difference Between Broad, Phrase, and Exact Match Search Volume Data

Posted in Keyword Research on May 7th, 2010 | 2 comments

This will be a quick post, no real need to go into deep detail. This is something that’s important and a lot of people ask me about so I want to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what’s going on.

Let’s start. There are 3 ways to check keyword search volume with Google: broad, phrase, and exact match. What the hell is the difference? And which one should you be checking search volume with?

Broad Match

Broad match is the default setting when using the Keyword Tool. What broad match means is that any time any part of the keyword shows up in a search phrase, that data gets added to the reported total searches per month. For instance, if the keyword is “sunflower seeds”, then any search with either “sunflower” or “seeds” or “sunflower seeds” in it will be added into the total volume. So the actual search terms “sunflower seeds” might only get 100 searches, while “seeds” gets 2000 searches and “fruit seeds” gets 600 searches.

So broad match search volume is an aggregate of all searches involving any combination of any of the keywords as well as other words you didn’t account for. It’s an inflated number when estimating search volume.

Phrase Match

Phrase match keyword search volume works like this: if you check phrase match search volume for “sunflower seeds” then the number returned will include all traffic for the main phrase as well as phrases like “huge sunflower seeds” and “sunflower guide for seeds”. The number returned is the aggregate of all search phrases that must include the entire set of main keywords, no matter if they are split up by other words or not. This number is definitely more accurate than broad match, but can still be slightly inflated.

Exact Match

Finally, there is exact match keyword data. The volume of searches returned when checking exact match keywords is simply for only that single keyphrase. So there are no aggregates involved, it’s only the total number of searches for just that exact phrase, typed exactly into Google, with no other words included. This is the most accurate number to reference when researching niches, as it doesn’t aggregate traffic you might not actually rank for and get. You should always check your search volumes with this setting on.

Finishing Up

The point of this post is that it is easy to be deceived by broad and phrase match data, so you should use exact match data when searching for niches. When trying to get ranked for certain keywords, you cannot guarantee that you will be able to rank for all variations and combinations of keywords, so the most realistic estimate of possible traffic is the exact match search volume data.

I’ll post more this weekend, I have some cool ideas in the works.

Til then,

D



2 Responses to “ “The Difference Between Broad, Phrase, and Exact Match Search Volume Data”

1. rob says:

   June 21, 2010 at 2:47 am

   Hi there,

   That was good info.I stupidly misunderstood this style of searching thinking that people who actually typed “keyword” or [keyword]into SE’s was how these results came about as opposed to simply searching – keyword – Stupid.

   Is there a way however to search for what people type with phrase or exact match involved – ie they actually type “keyword” or [keyword]?.. with the phrase or exact match characters?

   Thanks though – good info,

   rob.

   Reply
2. Quang says:

   July 12, 2010 at 12:51 am

   omg i can’t stress how important this post is. Alot of people teach broad or phrase and it drives me crazy and i have been so stupid in the past following along and have wasted so much time and money on kewyword domains that get hardly any traffic.

   I have since changed and did a quick seach to get some confirmation on this to find this post. seriously this is an awesome post. Short and sweet but could save others heaps of money and time.

   Reply