Today we announced an improvement to our search volume accuracy in our US database. This post explains the technical details of how we did it.
How to Measure Search Volume Accuracy
In order to make our search volume prediction algorithms as accurate as possible, we had to find a way to measure whether we were on target or not.
To achieve that, we needed to:
- Choose a source of volume data that would be as close to real volume as possible and use it as the benchmark value
- Clean the data from the selected source to avoid irrelevancies and junk
- Make sure the selection of keywords had an even distribution of low-volume queries (long-tail keywords), high-volume queries, and medium-volume queries
After we validated the selection of keywords, we ran our study to see how Semrush compared to Moz, Ahrefs, Serpstat, Sistrix, Google Keyword Planner when it came to providing accurate search volumes.
How We Chose the Benchmark Data Source
After over 50 interviews with experienced SEOs, the consensus was clear: experts believe the most accurate source of search volume is through Google Search Console (GSC).
Because our panel was so confident, and because GSC contains real data coming directly from Google, we agreed that GSC would work well as our benchmark. Although there is no “Search Volume” metric found in GSC, there is something close: impressions.
We used this metric with reservations, because, as it’s said here, impressions are not the same as volume. Impressions are “how often someone saw a link to your site on Google. Depending on the result type, the link might need to be scrolled or expanded into view.”
While impressions and volume are different, there are instances where they’re similar.
If the position of your domain is immediately visible (without scrolling on desktop or mobile results) for everyone who enters the query, then impressions would be equal to volume in most cases.