In the realm of digital marketing, forecasting accuracy plays a key role in strategic decision-making. Keyword variations, often referred to as keyword close variants, are a common challenge for marketers when predicting website traffic or search engine performance. To address this issue and offer users more realistic forecasting data, we have implemented an automatic algorithm for detecting keyword close variants coupled with the option to exclude these variations from the forecasts when the predictive estimations are computed.

The detection algorithm verifies the keyword list selected when setting up the forecast and detects the keywords that have the exact search volume for the last 12 months, and where the keyword string similarity is higher than 70%. The variations may encompass plural forms, abbreviations, or misspellings of a keyword that fulfill the 2 mentioned conditions. For instance, if the keyword is "htc mini one," its variations might include "htc one mini" or "htc o n e mini."

Furthermore, from the pack of variations, the keyword with the highest ranking position is selected to be part of the predicted traffic and showcased in the "View data forecast per keyword" table.

Enabling users to exclude keyword variations when setting up a forecast is a feature meant to enhance the reliability of the predictive estimations.

When this option is enabled, all close variants of keywords are disregarded from the forecast calculation. Thus, the forecast becomes more accurate and realistic as the expected traffic is no longer falsely increased by the aggregation of search volumes across variants.

💡 You can explore this functionality within AWR by accessing the Forecasting section. Details on how the Forecasting feature works and how it can be used to achieve the desired SEO objectives can be found in this article.

The Forecasting feature is available for all types of plans available, as follows:

Do you have any other questions? Don’t hesitate to get in touch and we will keep building the FAQ.