Why does Google Keyword Tool has high competition, but low CPC for some keywords?

Hi,





I was just looking at Google Keyword tool, and I can find many keywords which have very low CPC value, but high competition keywords. For example the competition for "cheap car insurance" is showing with the competition bar almost full, but the CPC is only $0.05. This doesn't make sense to me. If competition for a keyword is high, then the prices should be much higher than $0.05. Can anyone explain this? or Google is just making up some of these numbers?





Thanks,


Dan|||Dan,



This is definitively not the right CPC for "cheap care insurance".



I know by experience that advertisers can get from Google different (estimated) bid prices for the same keyword combination depending on when and where you perform the request鈥攂ut not to that extent.



These are the 2 estimated average values I've got for the cost-per-click (CPC) for the keyword "cheap car insurance":



In Google AdWords Keyword tool %26gt; $10

In Google AdWords %26gt; $51.00 (estimated bid price for first page)



As you may see, I've got from Google valid CPC values. Check the country selected by default in your web client before displaying estimated bid prices. Also in my case, $0.05 is the bid price for all combinations starting with "cheap car insurance", so could it be that you followed the wrong horizontal line?



鈥擯ascal Perry

Online Findability and SEO Strategist

Incidentally, Google AdWords advertiser since its inception in 2004|||Hi Dan,





This will depend if you are targeting worldwide market or just a state/area. But I must say that a keyword like "cheap car insurance" have a CPC of $0.05 is not right at all.





It may be that Google is clearing it's database, so that is why there is a wrong reading. But most of the time, the numbers are not that accurate, but it's a good indicator of telling me if this is good for me to target this niche.





Hope that helps.