Overture's Monthly "Count"

[Mort]

Does anyone know where the monthly "count" comes from in their Search Term Suggestion Tool?

I've heard conflicting opinions that it could be:
- number of monthly searches within Overture
- number of monthly searches by one of their affiliates (i.e. Lycos)
- number of monthly searches that a 3rd party 'invents'

Some of the keyword counts seem a bit fishy (Overture likes to alphabitize their keyword phrases):
149950 monthly searches for "trivita sublingual b 12"
532 monthly searches for "1 25 business in in miami montessouri school year"

It just doesn't make sense. Are these spidered searches?

[Dana Todd]

Hi Mort,
From what I know, Overture's tool is across all their network of affiliate sites. It does not filter for spider traffic or people running ranking reports, etc., which may run up the searchcount.

So, take all Overture reports with a grain of salt, and just look for broad trends in popularity.

-Dana