Say you were doing some keyword research on a term you felt was widely used and that pertained to a densely populated demographic. You may be surprised to find that all your search terms are coming up empty. A Cre8asite Forums member has run into this problem and is baffled by why it's occurring.

There are a few reasons this happens. One of the possibilities is that the search phrase isn't used. But the other reason is due to the nature of these keyword tools; these tools don't gather every single search query entered by Internet users. Instead, these tools are gathering information from ISPs from a certain time period and that the data the tools contain is only a subset of the entire searcher base.

A.N.Onym goes further to elaborate on the tools:

- WordTrack only has data of latest 90 days and only tracks metacrawlers (Dogpile and some other metacrawler)
- KeywordDiscovery hasn't disclosed its sources, though it shouldn't be everything
- Google External Tool does have Google data, but without exact figures (unless you use Google Traffic Estimator)

Therefore, your keyword research strategy should encompass more than one keyword research tool and you should vary your search terms.

Forum discussion continues at Cre8asite Forums.

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