Search Volume
The average number of monthly searches for a term in one specific country or region.
Analogy Mental model
The daily footfall past a shop window. Useful for comparing two streets, useless for telling you whether anyone will come inside.
In practice What you actually do
Always set the country before reading the number. Global volume averages markets with different languages and different habits, and it will mislead you about Germany or Japan specifically. Compare the same country across terms, never the same term across countries.
Where people get burned Pitfalls
The figure is a twelve-month average, so it lags badly. A product launched three weeks ago can be searched a million times this month and still show zero, because the average has not caught up with it yet.
This entry was written in English from the Chinese original, not machine-translated. Read the Chinese version →