Keyword Planner vs Search Console Comparing Search Volumes

Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Keyword Planner (GKP) Keyword Planner vs Search Console are the two official sources of keyword search volume statistics. We decided to compare the numbers and see how well they matched.

Because it shows you the exact number of times your page appeared in Google’s search results for a specific keyword, GSC is widely regarded as the “single source of truth” for accurate keyword data.

So, if your page consistently ranks on Google’s front page for a given search query, the number of impressions for that query in GSC should (in most cases) accurately reflect the search volume.

GKP’s search volume statistics is regarded to be far less exact. Specifically because:

It organises keywords that have comparable meanings.
It categorises search volumes into buckets.
Nonetheless, many SEO professionals are satisfied with and believe that the search volumes provided by GKP are accurate.

So we decided to conduct a small experiment to see how search volumes from GKP compare to the “single source of truth,” aka GSC.

Comparing search volumes between GSC and GKP

We chose 72,635 random terms with search volumes ranging from 1,000 to 10,000. Then, for the same month, we compared the number of “impressions” in GSC to the search volume data from GKP.

The actual question is how much. After all, what’s the big deal if it only slightly overestimates search volumes?

The majority of GKP search volumes (54.28%) are overestimations, while just under half (45.22%) are generally accurate (deviating from GSC “impressions” by no more than 50%).

For the SEO nerds out there, here’s a more detailed look at how GSC data compares to GKP: