For every keyword found for your project, RankDots records the same set of facts: how many people search for it, whether that is changing, what those people want, who already ranks, and what a click is worth.
This analysis runs in the background while your project is being created, together with keyword discovery and clustering, and everything comes together at the end. When the project is ready, every keyword already carries these values. Collecting the same facts, the same way, for every keyword is what lets grouping and prioritisation compare like with like.
How it works
What we record for each keyword
| Metric | What it tells you | Where it comes from |
| Search volume | How many times a month people search for the phrase in your country and language | Estimated from search data |
| Trend | A 12-month line showing whether searches are rising or falling | Estimated from search data |
| Keyword difficulty | How strong the pages already ranking are, as a score | Calculated by RankDots from the results page |
| Search intent | What the searcher wants: Informational, Navigational, Commercial, Transactional or Local | Classified by RankDots from the results page |
| Google Top 20 | The sites that hold the top 20 results right now | Observed on Google’s results page |
| SERP features | Extra result types on the page: videos, images, questions, reviews and so on | Observed on Google’s results page |
Three kinds of data
The right-hand column of the table matters more than it looks, because the three kinds of data behave differently.
- Observed. Google Top 20 and SERP features are read from Google’s actual results page for the phrase, in your country and language. They are a snapshot of what Google showed at the time of the check.
- Estimated. Search volume, Trend, 3-month search trend and Cost per click are modelled from search and advertising data. They are the best available estimate, not a count. The same phrase can show different volumes in different tools because each tool models it differently.
- Calculated. Keyword difficulty and Search intent are RankDots’ own reading of the results page: difficulty scores the pages that rank from 0 to 100; intent classifies what those pages are answering.
When the check happens
Metrics are captured when your project is created. Trend covers the twelve months before that date, and Google Top 20 shows the results page as it was on that day.
Where you see the results
The Keywords screen lists every keyword in the project with these values as columns, sorted by Search volume.
Open Manage columns to add 3-month search trend, or the Page and Topic cluster a keyword belongs to. Any column can be used as a filter with Add filter.
The same values appear for the keywords of a single page when you open Page details from the Pages screen, together with Cost per click for the page as a whole.
What this means for you
Read the columns together, not one at a time. A high search volume with a Google Top 20 full of large brands is a different opportunity from the same volume with weak results. Volume says how many people search; the other columns say whether you can reach them.
Difficulty describes the keyword, not your site. It scores the pages that already rank. Whether you can beat them also depends on your own site, which this step knows nothing about — that comparison comes later, when you connect Search Console.
Do not compare estimates with measurements one-to-one. A search volume of 1,220,000 and a Clicks figure from Search Console are not the same kind of number. Use estimates to choose between keywords; use measured clicks to see what actually happened.
These values feed the next steps. Step 3 groups keywords into pages using intent and the results they share. Step 5 turns volume, difficulty and the results page into the Potential traffic figure you see in the same table. Neither step adds new facts about a keyword; they both work from what this step recorded.
What next
- Step 3 — How we group keywords into pages
- Step 1 — How we find your keywords