I believe you get "better" numbers when logged in to Adwords and use exact match. As we know that these are not actual numbers but more of a index against the set of keywords being researched. I tend to go with Global versus Local as well.

1 of the big issue, is that if you run the report for a word that is not on an advertiser list yet, so there is no competition for that word, it gives you totally wrong amount of queries you can get per day.

I don't trust Google full stop, so how would i trust their keyword tool?

Our clients have smaller budgets and expect results, so NO we can not trust the keyword tool results.

Like any keyword tool, the Google Keyword Tool needs to be taken with a grain of salt. There are always going to be irrelevant queries, and for that reason I would never simply add them without taking the time to scrub them and identify other expansions. However, the tool is generally valuable for identifying head terms and modifiers.

I am hurt because of the comments and I am writing this comment only for the commentators.

No keyword tool is perfect. all of you are not believing on the tool provided by Google because its free. If Google were charging you for their tools like: KeywordExternalTool, Google Trends, Google Insights, SKTool (Search Based Keyword Tool) etc... you would appreciate them.

Second the tools provided by Google is not for Publishers but is for Advertisers. so if you want to use these tools for you keyword research, you will have to learn the whole process of Keyword and Market researching.

Tell me one thing. who knows you better than you? YOU youself, have you any doubt on this fact? exactly who knows which keyword have been searched mostly on GOOGLE, it knows only Google exactly.

You believe on WordTracker which is depending on DogPile and MetaCrowler that covers only 2% market of US and UK. what about for the other 98% market and rest of the countries of the world?

You believe on the data of KeywordDiscovery, and on what it depends? near about on 200 small search engines.

all keyword tools captures their data from Google, Yahoo and MSN and after normalizing those data, they serves you and you believe on them because they charges you while Google, Yahoo and MSN is not charging you any penny, you can't believe on their results.

Profitable Market and Profitable Keyword Research is a Step by Step long process. you can't make decision in 10 minutes about which keyword is good and which is not. second thing is which keyword is looking you best, have you ever checked the Complexity Factor of the keyword, Search Volume and Actual Competition count of the keyword?

If you don't know properly about all these 3 most important factors, you can never capture right market and right keyword.

Don't blame on the Tools given by Google. all the tools are giving their best results offered by Google. The problem is not in the Data given by Google. The problem is we don't know how to use their data properly and efficiently and how to make right decisions on the basis of data.

Be positive. No other site or company gives you results ant Tools like giving Google, Yahoo and MSN for free.These are the biggest Search Engines at the current time. Why they will give you wrong results which can hurt their reputation.

The problem is not in Data given by the tools, problem is in our Researching Process. If external tool is saying 3000 searches per month for any keyword it means 100 search per day and each SERP have minimum 15 links: 10 for Organic and 5 for Sponsored.

Top 3 results captures 60% clicks. it means only top 3 results are getting 60 clicks and rest of the 10 to 12 links gets 40 clicks. if you are getting 5th position for any keyword and you think that you will get 100 clicks per day, its problem of your mind because you are going to get clicks from rest of the 40 clicks and 10 other sites are in your competition.

the summary is that if any keyword is getting 3000 clicks per month and you are not in the top 3 on SERP, you are not going to get more than 2 to 5 clicks per day.

From: Google Keyword Tool

Yes, I trust Google's Keyword Tool. In fact, I think it's so great, it can be used to determine ideas for successful domain names. I wrote an entire blog about this tools helps you accomplish this: http://www.themasterblog.com/five-steps-quick-website-launch-step-one/#more-42

Google's keyword tool is always been the best,

Google is a cool keyword tool. been using it ever since