New Feature: Cached Keyword Difficulty Scores

One of the most requested features of KeySearch was the ability to see more keyword scores without needing to check them manually. Today we’re happy to announce a new feature that does just that called “Cached Keyword Scores”.

Normally we had what we called a “real-time cache” of keyword scores (7-30 days depending). When doing a search we would only show these recently cached scores. The reasoning here, and something we prided ourselves on compared to other tools was that you always got real-time, up-to-date keyword scores. Most other keyword tools show keyword scores that have been cached for very long periods of time.

With this new feature update, you now have the best of both worlds! You see the real-time keyword scores as usual, and in addition, you also see more keyword scores immediately with our cached keyword scores database. At launch, the feature was only available for Global (All Locations) and United States searches.

Using Cached Scores

Freshly cached scores from our normal “real-time cache” will show with full color as usual. Cached scores not in the real-time cache due to age (older than 30 days), will have a slightly dulled color. You can see an example of this below.

If you decide you want to update the data on a cached keyword score you can just click on it and it will update as usual. Giving you the same ability to update scores as before with the additional ease of showing more scores right from the get-go.

Benefits of Cached Scores

Since cached scores allow you to see more keyword scores during your searches you will be able to work faster and narrow down your keyword choices quicker.

Although keyword difficulty scores change over time, they usually don’t change that drastically. Cached scores will allow you to get a better idea of which keywords are already too hard to target, or on the other hand, show you keywords that might be easy and ripe for the picking. This allows you to not waste time and credits checking keywords that you wouldn’t bother with anyway.

Seeing more scores will also give you a better idea of the overall topic. If you load a keyword search and see a lot of red, you probably know the topic, in general, is fairly hard, and finding low competition keywords in that topic might be more difficult. The same works in reverse. Doing a keyword search and seeing very few red keywords will be a good indicator that this topic might have some keywords that will be easy to go after and rank for.

Bulk Check Credit Saver

When we launched cached scores, we also added an option to the preferences menu on the Settings/Upgrade page titled “Bulk Check Credit Saver”. It was enabled by default on all accounts.

What it did was skip over all cached scores when doing bulk keyword difficulty checks. This saved credits and made it so you could check more keywords for difficulty or do more searches. Even with it unchecked, bulk checks still skipped recently checked keyword scores in our real-time cache.

Cached Scores: Future Features

With the addition of the cached scores database, we now have access to more keyword scores to potentially incorporate into future features. For example, we planned to use the cached score database within our Explorer and Organic Keywords section to show keyword difficulty scores there too. That has since shipped: Explorer’s Organic Keywords now shows a Score column. The future is bright!