How long is your search long tail?

Here at vBSEO, we get traffic from over 16,000 different keyword phrases every month. This is called the search long tail and is the most powerful phenomenon for getting traffic to your forum.

How long is your long tail? That is, how many different unique keywords deliver you traffic each month?

The question was originally posted by our vBSEO member Bernard:

Originally Posted by Bernard

Checking my stats today it hit me that my forum has a really long tail.

15% of Google search referrals for the month so far come from 3 keyphrases (the main ones I directed my seo efforts to attain). The rest of the referrals are spread out over different random phrases. The ratio of unique search phrases / total searches is roughly 68%.

How large a shadow is your long tail casting?

Here is a quick intro to long tail search and how it relates to your forum:
http://www.vbseo.com/blogs/joe-ward/...long-tail-145/

Here is some info on how to measure your long tail:
http://www.vbseo.com/blogs/joe-ward/...long-tail-146/

For Walt Disney World Orlando Visiting Forum my unique keywords is 5128.

google sent 168,626 total visits via 117,642 keywords


google sent 168,626 total visits via 22,686 landing pages



my top 25 urls are all within a couple hundred hits, then it drops dramitically, a couple hundred per 26-1000

Originally Posted by briansol

google sent 168,626 total visits via 117,642 keywords


google sent 168,626 total visits via 22,686 landing pages



my top 25 urls are all within a couple hundred hits, then it drops dramitically, a couple hundred per 26-1000

I like how you also noted the # of landing pages, showing that you landing pages are on average obtaining traffic about 5 different keyword variations.

Last 30 days:

• 18,631 - # of different keywords
• 8,435 - # of landing pages generating traffic
• About 2 keyword variations per landing page.

Last 30 days:

Search sent 148,254 total visits via 87,825 keywords

Search sent 148,254 total visits via 10,363 landing pages

Stats for previous month [March] :

# 2,523 total search engine referrals via 1,601 keywords and 553 landing pages.

Interesting, a traffic to keywords to land page ratio of:

4.6 : 3.8 : 1

I can't find where to filter landing pages only for search engines but...

Las 30 days:

Search sent 1,209,286 total visits via 753,775 keywords


1,465,682 visits entered the site through 127,729 URLs

Wow - over 750,000 keywords! Now that is a really hardcore search long tail.

Search sent 291,651 total visits via 206,986 keywords

Search sent 5,281,460 total visits via 735,454 keywords

Search sent 5,685 total visits via 3,841 keywords

Just doesn't seem to be improving.

Originally Posted by Noodles

Search sent 291,651 total visits via 206,986 keywords

Search sent 5,281,460 total visits via 735,454 keywords

That's the power of user generated content + long tail. Wow!

Originally Posted by briansol

google sent 168,626 total visits via 117,642 keywords


google sent 168,626 total visits via 22,686 landing pages



my top 25 urls are all within a couple hundred hits, then it drops dramitically, a couple hundred per 26-1000

to update... just a couple months later here





google sent 188,775 total visits via 136,121 keywords

google sent 188,775 total visits via 23,383 landing pages

for jun 14 - july 14th 2008


more better


and for all se's:





Search sent 200,947 total visits via 143,962 keywords

Search sent 200,947 total visits via 24,658 landing pages

Very nice jump.