What is monthly search volume?
Monthly search volume (sometimes abbreviated to MSV) is the number of times people searched the keyword during a month. It tells you the keyword's "search demand"—how popular the keyword is during that month. More popular keywords have higher search demand, and drive more traffic to their top search results because more people search for them.
Popularity can change over time. Looking at monthly search volume trends over time can also help you identify seasonal changes, helping you to plan when to publish content ahead of volume spikes. For example, there are more searches for “New Year party napkins” in December than in other months.
Currently, in most reports, monthly search volume represents the monthly value averaged across the most recent 12 months. However, when the data is available for a time period, our Keywords report shows an approximate value for the actual number of searches for the keyword during the month—not a 12-month average.
How do I research monthly search volumes with Conductor?
In reports, you’ll see monthly search volume appear for keywords.
To look up a keyword’s search volume, enter a topic in Explorer ↗️, and review the monthly search volume in the Monthly Search Interest widget.
How does Conductor calculate and display monthly search volume?
By location
This data appears for locations as determined by the report you are viewing in Conductor. For example, a report showing data for New York, NY shows search volumes for New York City. Likewise, a report showing data for the United States shows search volume for the United States.
By device
Monthly search volume values always represent keywords performed on all devices. This means a report showing data for San Francisco, CA on desktop will show the same monthly search volume values as for a report showing data for keywords in San Francisco, CA on Smartphone.
By source
For keywords you track in Conductor, monthly search volume data comes directly from Google's Keyword Planner as part of Conductor's search data publication process.
For keywords that appear elsewhere in the platform (for example, the Explorer report or the Paid & Organic Optimizer report), monthly search volume data comes from Semrush—one of Conductor's data partners.
Note monthly search volumes for your tracked keywords that appear in Explorer will come from Google Keyword Planner because you have tracked them.
Monthly Search Volume Trend Graphs
In some reports in Conductor, trend graphs appear to show the most recent 12 months of average monthly search volume values to help indicate seasonal changes in interest.
Note that each bar represents a full calendar month of data, averaged across the month— with the most recent full month appearing on the right. For example, If you view the graph on March 30, the rightmost bar represents February (the most recent month with full data) and the leftmost bar represents January from the previous year. If you view the graph a week later on April 6, the rightmost bar represents March and the leftmost represents February from the previous year.
Does Conductor report city- and device-specific search volume data?
Conductor reports monthly search volume for keywords tracked at the location specificity you are reporting on.
However, Conductor does not report on monthly search volume for specific devices.
What is the difference between a monthly search volume value of 0 versus "N/A"?
An explicit value of 0 means that Google reported that no searches were performed. Note that it is possible to rank for a keyword search that received little or no search volume. This is more likely for very specific or long-tail keywords.
N/A (Not Applicable) means that Google did not report a value for the search. Usually, Google limits monthly search volume data to only keywords with:
- No special characters (such as accents or diacritical marks).
- Fewer than 80 characters.
- Fewer than 10 words.
If one of your keywords does not have any of the characteristics listed above but still has a volume of N/A, either of the following may be true:
- Conductor may not yet have processed monthly search volume data for them. This might occur based on when you tracked them in your account. Refer to this FAQ to learn more.
- Google simply has not published monthly search volume data for the keyword, so no value could be assigned in Conductor.
Why do Conductor's monthly search volumes differ across the platform for the same keywords?
There are various reasons your search volume data in Conductor might differ across the platform or from other tools you use. The primary difference relates to what you are trying to accomplish with Conductor’s data—and whether you have tracked a keyword with Conductor or not:
- When you report on your site’s performance for your tracked keywords in measurement reports like Keywords and Market Share, Conductor uses search volume data from Google Keyword Planner.
- When you research topics and keywords you haven’t already tracked in features like Explorer and Content Guidance, Conductor uses data from our partner Semrush to provide monthly search volumes.
For many keywords, Semrush and Google Keyword Planner's data will be the same (or nearly the same)—but not always.
Why do similar variants of a keyword all have the same search volumes?
Semrush and Google differ in how they calculate volumes for variants of keywords or related keywords.
Google Keyword Planner frequently combines monthly search volumes for what Google calls “close variants”—that is, keywords they think have similar search intent. For these close variant keywords, Google does not indicate the volumes for each constituent keyword. For example, the volume reported for "resume templates" and "resume template format" together might be 368,000, but there is no indication of the search volume for each term.
Semrush uses their own methods for determining the search intent for a keyword by “ungrouping” the data for close variants they get from Google. At times, this will result in significant differences between the search volumes they publish and the search volumes Google reports.
As a result, reviewing the data for "resume templates" OR "resume template format" will appear as 368,000 in the Keyword Details report in Conductor, but those might appear significantly different if you researched those same keywords in Semrush based on their methods for distributing search volume across close variant keywords.
If a keyword has different search volume values, which should I use?
In general, we believe our monthly search volume gathered from Google Keyword Planner best represents the most holistic understanding of the keywords users search for on Google. It reflects the search demand that Google itself assumes when answering its users' queries. Furthermore, it reflects what we know to be true about the use of learning language models (LLMs) in search technologies: LLMs focus on understanding context and user intent rather than exact keyword matches.
Because of this, we recommend tracking your most important keywords with Conductor Intelligence to see this monthly search volume in measurement reports.
That said, we understand that it is vital for digital marketers to have some indication of search demand when you research the keywords you don’t already track with Conductor. To do this research right, you need as much keyword data as possible—and directional insights about their popularity. That’s why Conductor uses Semrush's data for our research tools: their index can provide an enormous amount of data about the topics you haven’t tracked as keywords, and provide you with great insights into the directionality and seasonality of search demand.
In the end, Conductor and all the other data providers in our space want to provide you with high-fidelity insights that drive value for your organization. While the individual data points may vary because providers define "high-fidelity" in different ways, look at trends to understand directionality, review multiple sources of data across the Conductor platform to get a broader picture of audience search interest, and when something doesn't seem right, don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.
What about monthly search volume non-Google search engines?
Conductor supports other search engines with their own monthly search volume data:
Amazon: Conductor derives and calculates Amazon monthly search volume data from Google Keyword Planner data.
Baidu: Baidu monthly search volume data comes from Conductor's data partner Dragon Metrics. This metric is an average of the daily search volumes from the previous 30 days, multiplied by 30. As a result, this metric updates daily.
Daum: Conductor derives and calculates Daum monthly search volume data from Google Keyword Planner data.
Naver: Naver monthly search volume data comes from Conductor's data partner Dragon Metrics. This metric is the sum of the daily search volumes during the month. As a result, this metric updates daily.
Yandex: Yandex monthly search volume data comes from Conductor's data partner Serpstat, and is updated monthly.
Why doesn't Conductor report some of my search volumes?
Conductor uses Google data sources to provide monthly search volume values. Because of Google's policies, they may not provide monthly search volume values for certain keywords related to topics such as weapons, dangerous products, or tobacco. As a result, Conductor cannot display these values in the platform for the relevant keywords.
When can I see monthly search volume data for a keyword I added to Conductor?
You can expect that monthly search volume data will appear with rank data for newly tracked keywords in as few as two days—but no later than 14 days. Data for keywords added to Conductor before 5:00 P.M. Eastern on Thursdays appears in Conductor on Monday. Data for keywords added after that time will appear in Conductor after the following time period closes and data is published on the following Monday.
What does the tooltip mean when it says "Data includes 12-month average MSV: awaiting search engine update"
As stated above, Conductor publishes approximate monthly search volumes for keywords as soon as it has the data collected for the time periods in question. Until that point, the monthly search volume for a keyword reflects an average of the previous 12 months.
In the Keyword Details report, you'll see this indicated by a dashed line and the following tooltip for any affected time periods in the chart:
"Data includes 12-month average MSV: awaiting search engine update"
In Keywords, you'll also see this indicated by the dashed line and the tool tip, but only when at least 10% of the keywords you are reporting on are using averaged search volumes.