> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.surnex.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Keyword metrics

> What volume, difficulty, CPC, competition, and intent mean, and how to read them together.

Every keyword in Surnex carries the same set of metrics, on the [research table](/keywords/research), [saved keywords](/keywords/saved), and tracked keyword cards. This page explains what each one measures — and, more usefully, what each one doesn't.

## Volume

Average monthly searches for the keyword, in the project's [location and language](/projects/settings).

It's an average over the preceding twelve months, so a strongly seasonal keyword shows a figure it rarely actually hits. Check the **Trend** sparkline before treating volume as a monthly forecast: a term averaging 1,000 might be 6,000 in December and 200 in July.

Volume is per market. The same keyword has a different figure in the US and the UK, which is why changing the project locale changes the numbers.

## Trend

A sparkline of the last twelve months of search interest. Expand a row for the full-size chart.

Read it for shape, not precision. Three shapes matter: **steadily rising** (worth investing in early), **seasonal spikes** (time your content), and **declining** (the term is losing relevance regardless of what the average says).

## Keyword difficulty (KD)

A 0–100 estimate of how hard ranking on page one would be, based on the strength of the pages currently ranking.

Colour-coded throughout the interface:

| KD     | Colour | Reading     |
| ------ | ------ | ----------- |
| 0–39   | Green  | Achievable  |
| 40–69  | Amber  | Competitive |
| 70–100 | Red    | Hard        |

The thresholds are fixed. Note they're relative to *the whole web*, not to you: a KD of 35 is easy for an established domain and can still be out of reach for a new one. Judge KD against your own [domain authority](/domains/overview), not in isolation.

## CPC

What advertisers pay per click on this keyword, on average, in US dollars.

CPC is the best available proxy for **commercial value**. A keyword with modest volume and a high CPC is one people pay real money for, which usually means it converts. A high-volume keyword with a CPC near zero is informational — traffic, but rarely revenue.

Expand a row for **Low Bid** and **High Bid**, the range behind that average. A wide range means advertisers disagree about what the click is worth.

## Competition

Advertiser competition — how contested the keyword is in **paid** search.

Shown as `LOW`, `MEDIUM`, or `HIGH`, colour-coded green, amber, and red. Expanding a row also gives you **Competition (raw)**, the underlying 0–1 score, and **Competition Index**, the same figure on a 0–100 scale.

<Warning>
  Competition is a paid-search metric and says nothing about organic difficulty. Use **KD** for how hard it is to rank organically. A keyword can be `LOW` competition and still have a KD of 80.
</Warning>

## Intent

What the searcher is trying to do. Expanded rows show a **Main Intent** and any **Foreign Intent** — secondary intents the query also carries.

Intent decides what you should build, and it's the metric most often ignored:

| Intent        | The searcher wants | Page that wins                       |
| ------------- | ------------------ | ------------------------------------ |
| Informational | To learn           | Guide, article                       |
| Commercial    | To compare         | Comparison, review, listicle         |
| Transactional | To buy             | Product or pricing page              |
| Navigational  | A specific site    | Usually unwinnable if it's not yours |

Targeting a transactional keyword with a blog post loses to a product page no matter how good the writing is. Match the format to the intent first, then worry about volume.

## SERP features

The features present in the results — featured snippets, local packs, AI Overviews, and so on. Shown on expanded [saved keywords](/keywords/saved).

These compete for the click. Ranking first under a featured snippet and a four-result local pack can deliver less traffic than ranking third on a clean results page.

## Reading them together

No single metric decides anything. In practice:

* **High volume, high KD, high CPC** — valuable and contested. A long-term project, not a quick win.
* **Low volume, low KD, high CPC** — the best opportunities on most sites. Small, winnable, and commercially real.
* **High volume, low CPC, informational** — traffic that rarely converts. Fine for awareness, poor for pipeline.
* **Any volume, wrong intent** — skip it. Intent mismatches don't rank however good the page is.

## Freshness

Metrics are captured when the lookup runs and don't refresh themselves. A [saved keyword](/keywords/saved) shows the figures from the day you saved it, and a [research job](/keywords/research) from the day it ran. Expanded rows show a **Last Updated** field. Re-run the research for current numbers.