Chances are – if you visit seomoz on a regular basis – you already know the importance of keywords, choosing your keywords correctly and therefore that keyword research is one of the most important areas behind a successful seo strategy.

The google adwords keyword tool is probably the industry standard way to assess which keywords to chase for seo purposes. There are other alternatives, but it’s free and it’s google giving data on google. It may not be perfect, with its numbers sometimes not lining up with actual impressions (based on ads in adwords showing 100% of the time) as well as different results whether you’re logged in or not, but as a rough indicator and a guide, it is a good starting point and foundation for an seo campaign.

The keyword tool word limit

However, another issue with it that I’ve discovered is that there seems to be a word limit – at least this seems to be the case with the current Chinese Europe Phone Number List version. The results are affected like so:

This seems to be the case regardless of whether:

The “Only show ideas closely relat to my search terms” box (below the main search box) is tick or not,

There are less than the maximum of 800 possible search terms

 

You’re logg in or not.
What this means

If you type in “Seo” and tick the “Only show ideas…” box, you may assume that you will see all suggestions containing the word “Seo,” unless EF Leads there are more than the maximum of 800, of course. If there are more than 800, which 800 does it show you? It’s not necessarily the 800 keywords with the highest search volume (eliminating those that receive less searches), nor some randomly-generated mixture of head terms and long tail.

Instead, if it’s a search for just one. Phrase that itself is just one word in length (like “Seo”) then. It looks like you will be shown the top 800 keywords. In terms of search volume but only those that are no longer than three words in length.