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Comment by baxtr | Hacker News Reader

What I learned recently was that all the SEO tool basically query the same back end provider.

So I guess it makes sense that there is innovation on the pricing model side of things.

We use ubersuggest which has a lifetime pricing, quite neat.

Please enlighten us about the backend provider, I'm interested. It seems the OP of this thread is using the same backend as he's not willing to tell it.

edit: Ubersuggest mentioned by someone says in dev blog

https://neilpatel.com/blog/ubersuggest-update/

> My data feed from SEO Power Suite, Data For SEO, and Shared Count totaled $75,253 for January.

Is this the backend mentioned?

Some direct links for others interested in this

https://www.link-assistant.com/backlink-api.html

https://dataforseo.com/

https://www.sharedcount.com/

I casually read it on twitter, I can't find it anymore. Bummer. I should have bookmarked it

I fortunately found some details myself too (edited the parent), thanks anyway

Great, thanks for sharing!

At first glance these look like sources for backlink data to me, which is the easy part.

I think the real value of a keyword tool like ahrefs lies in the estimated search volume which comes from different sources than the backlinks.

Is this about a monopolistic provider of backlink data or search volume estimates?

The search volume estimates come from creating massive amounts of accounts that scrape Google Keyword Tool.

This would be funny, because the sales pitch of some prominent keyword tools is, that Google Keyword Tool can't be trusted.

Ahrefs says "and other third party data sources to find keywords" [0]

Pretty sure they buy data from software tools like free anti-virus scanners, toolbars, chrome extensions, VPNs, etc that resell their user's web browsing history. This is called "click stream data".

[0] https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/78119-where-do-you-get-t...

Interesting! I always thought, this kind of data was collected from a plethora of borderline shady browser plugins (SEO plugins amongst them, ironically), toolbars and alt-browsers.

This is also, why I think the data must be heavily biased. For example the HN demographic must be severely underrepresented, because most of us are careful what we install.

> why I think the data must be heavily biased.

This is correct, but you can estimate the bias.

B2B keywords typically have 2-5x higher search volume/month than the popular tools estimate, for exactly the reason you provided. More sophisticated searchers aren't installing random anti-virus, VPNs, and plugins the SEO tools rely on to calculate keyword search volume.

Would that happen to be Majestic by chance?

what’s the name of the backend provider?

I'd prefer not to tell, thank you for understanding!

That just confirmed that you're using "the same backend provider."

Buy itself that's not bad. The problem is that if you're doing what everyone else is doing, then you're probably not realizing any efficiencies. That means your prices will eventually mirror everyone elses.

I am confused.

I always thought keyword tools use both: backlink data and estimated search volumes.

For example ahrefs has, to the best of my knowledge, its own crawler for backlink data but mostly buys search volume estimates.

Does your tool offer search volume estimates at all and does it come from the same provider as the backlink data?

Majestic

I can say it's not that one, if it's that important to know - DataForSEO is our provider for every aspect at the moment.

What's the rough pricing if you don't mind my asking? Their pricing is buried behind contact forms.

It depends. ~$0.01-$0.03 per query

I'm pretty sure, that tier-5 services are investing in their own data collectors and buying only small part of data.

You're right, that's exactly what out though process was. Thank you!

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