Fundamentals

Search volume

Search volume is the estimated number of times a query is searched per month. Every third-party figure is a model with wide error bars, not a measurement.

Tools infer volume from clickstream panels and from Google's own bucketed ranges, then average it over twelve months. That smoothing hides seasonality entirely: a query that peaks in December and disappears in July shows the same monthly figure as a steady one. For anything seasonal, look at the trend line, never the headline number.

Accuracy degrades outside English and on low-volume terms, where a reported 90 can be anything between 20 and 400. The correction is free: your own Search Console impressions measure how often a query ran while you were eligible to appear, which anchors any forecast far better than an external estimate.

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