Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

      Turn SEO data into actionable content briefs

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Let your business shine with Listings AI

      Get found
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing
      Moz API

      Access 20 years of data with flexible pricing

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Keyword Research
    4. Is it normal for the keyword difficulty tool to be moderate one month and highly competitive another?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Is it normal for the keyword difficulty tool to be moderate one month and highly competitive another?

    Keyword Research
    3
    3
    997
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • lwilkins
      lwilkins last edited by

      I designed a website a month ago and found moderate keywords to use through the SEOmoz tool. Now when I search them again, they are all highly competitive. Is it seasonal? Should I redo the keywords?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • EricaMcGillivray
        EricaMcGillivray last edited by

        Keywords can definitely flux per season. We've also been scrubbing some of our data, and Lavellester is correct that if some of our data sources change their opinion, our tool will change too.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • lavellester
          lavellester last edited by

          Hi

          I think it takes data from Google keywords tool data to determine keyword difficulty so I guess if the Google keyword tool data changes then this would be reflected in the keyword difficulty tool results.  although don't quote me on this!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          Browse Questions

          Explore more categories

          • Moz Tools

            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

          • SEO Tactics

            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

          • Community

            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

          • Digital Marketing

            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

          • Research & Trends

            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

          • Support

            Connect on product support and feature requests.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • clarasboutiqueusa

            How granular should I get with Keyword research?

            I'm doing KW research for a new business. My understanding from KW research guides: Use tools to create a list of thousands of keywords Analyze difficulty and search volume Reduce your list and do on page optimization for your select KWs My dilemma with this approach is that it seems "keyword based" rather than "intent" or "category" based. e.g. Let's say I have a grocery store. Ignoring SEO, I know that these are my main categories: Produce Meat Dairy Canned Goods Baked Goods In other words, the above categories are the general "intents" and "categories" that I'd really want to rank for. Keyword tool shows that they have high volume and high difficulty. Let's say that after doing keyword research, I discover "Low Fat Chicken Breasts" and "Turkey Sausage" and "Cheap Meat Wholesale" have decent search volume and low competition. I don't quite understand how I'm supposed to utilize these fringe keywords in my on page SEO plan because it doesn't make sense as a human to categorize my site that way. Not sure if this is clear. Basically I'm trying to figure out if I should really be getting this granular on keywords to help guide my store categories or if I should just be picking broader terms.

            Keyword Research | | clarasboutiqueusa
            0
          • Jseddon92

            Multilingual keyword research

            Does anyone have any experience in multilingual SEO? We are looking for software that conducts research for GEO Locations such as UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan & India. Writing content for each of these countries is difficult unless we speak their language, we could look at outsourcing the translation but conducting keyword research for each location is almost impossible.

            Keyword Research | | Jseddon92
            0
          • RIAdig

            Keywords with and without diacritics

            Hi, I am trying to make my site to appear in the search results even the searched term have or have not been wrote with diacritics for example: "șarpe" or "sarpe". The language is Romanian. If I seach for "Românul cu maşină, marea victimă" or "Romanul cu masina, marea victima" the first result for both searches is the same. I don't see anything special on their html code and I am wondering how do they did it. Regards, Bogdan

            Keyword Research | | RIAdig
            0
          • SnapComms

            Accuracy of search volume for keyword planner v old keyword tool?

            Hi there, I'm (logged into Google Adwords)  and researching search volume for keywords but I'm seeing weird results. I know that the term "outage notification" had between 1000 and 5000 monthly global searches when I last looked (I know this because I add a search volume tag to the keywords I track ranking of via Moz).  Yet, now when I check global search volume via keyword planner I'm seeing only 70 global searches per month (AND low competition which I know is not true).  Is this perhaps because only the exact match is reported or is something else going on? Very frustrated as I have now lost faith in the keyword research process via Google keyword planner....not sure where to go from here!! Thanks very much

            Keyword Research | | SnapComms
            1
          • Alchemist23

            Google Keyword Tool: What is considered a unique keyword?

            I'm trying to research keywords using Google's Keyword Tool.  After looking at results, I have the following questions: 1.  Does singular/plurals of a word count as two different keywords to Google (ie: photobooth and photobooths)?  Would I need to have a unique page targeting each word or will one page on my site be sufficient for targeting both? 2. I've noticed that different variations of keywords have the same global monthly search results.  This leads me to believe that Google see's all of them as one keyword.  ie: "photo booth props" and "props for a photo booth" and "props with photo booth", all have 22,200 search global monthly search resluts.  On the other hand "moustache prop" and "prop moustache" have different global monthly search results (480 and 590).  Can anyone explain this?

            Keyword Research | | Alchemist23
            0
          • mr_w

            Help finding some decent keywords

            Anyone care to help a SEO Newbie find a couple of key words that would be easier to rank for for my website that provides kayak fishing information? mysite: yakangler.com The key words that I've identified are as follows: best kayak   
            fishing from a kayak
            fishing kayak review
            fishing kayaks   
            kayak and fishing
            kayak fishing   
            kayak for fishing   
            kayak reviews   
            kayak rigging
            kayak weight limit   
            kayaks fishing   
            kayaks for fishing But I'm worried I'm missing the point, I don't see hardly any traffic from most of these. I've really tried to rank for "kayak fishing" but seem to be totally lost in the Google Panda abyss. Any advice on a different word or strategy would be greatly appreciated!

            Keyword Research | | mr_w
            0
          • mmookie

            What is the ideal keyword difficulty percentage?

            I am trying to establish my best keywords using the keyword difficulty tool. So if I want to come up with the best keywords, should I use the ones that come in at 50%??

            Keyword Research | | mmookie
            0
          • staingurus

            Adding qualifiers to keywords?

            I know that it's worth adding qualifiers to high value keywords to create long-tail variations which will later have the potential to rank well for the main keyword as well... My questions is, how important is it that the newly-formed keyword/phrase also be evaluated for search volume? E.g. "tips for job interviews" has a high search volume, but scores 72 in the Keyword Difficulty tool - quite high. I would therefore be tempted to create a "10 tips for job interviews" articles or something similar, yet THIS particular phrase is searched for <10 times per month... If there are not any easy-to-find qualifiers that also create a well-searched for keyword/phrase, is it still worth adding them?

            Keyword Research | | staingurus
            0

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.