Keyword difficulty checker: is this word worth the fight?
KD from 0 to 100, monthly volume, CPC and a 12-month trend for up to ten keywords at once. Sign in and it runs right here; new accounts start with up to 10 free credits.
example · what a lookup returns
| keyword | kd | monthly volume | cpc | what we did with it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| chatgpt seo tool | 1 | 480 | — | folded into the tools hub |
| ai visibility checker | 5 | 320 | $34.39 | built a free tool page |
| llm seo | 8 | 880 | $28.58 | wrote the guide |
| competitor monitoring tool | 13 | 260 | $26.37 | product landing page |
| keyword difficulty checker | 22 | 390 | $15.58 | this page |
| ai seo tools | 26 | 2,400 | $34.26 | the tools hub |
| keyword search volume | 79 | 880 | $15.41 | skipped — not worth the fight |
US, September 2026. These are the numbers we used to decide which pages on this site to build.
How to read the number
Three bands, and what each one has meant for the pages on this site.
KD 0–20
A new site can rank with content alone. The pages in the top ten have few referring domains, so a well-built page competes on the day it is indexed.
We saw KD 5 on "ai visibility checker" and built a free tool page for it.
KD 21–50
Content gets you onto page two. Reaching the top ten usually takes a few dozen referring domains pointing at the page, earned over months.
"keyword difficulty checker" is KD 22. This page is the bet.
KD 51+
The top ten is held by established domains with thousands of referring domains each. A new site does not get there by writing better.
"keyword search volume" is KD 79 with 880 searches a month. We skipped it and built this page instead.
Volume without difficulty is a trap
Keyword search volume is the number everyone looks at first, and on its own it is the most misleading metric in SEO. When we researched this site, "keyword research tool" showed 5,400 searches a month and looked like the obvious target. Its difficulty was 81. Every page in the top ten had thousands of referring domains. A new site could publish the best guide on the internet and never see page one.
The words that actually sent traffic were the ones nobody was fighting for. That is what the KD column is for: it turns a list of tempting numbers into a list of decisions.
What you get
Ten keywords per lookup, one market or worldwide, results in a few seconds.
KD, volume, CPC and a 12-month trend in one table, with a chart for the words you pick.
The same data the SEO agent reads when it decides which of your pages to work on.
Credits, not seats
- ✓every existing report, free to read
- ✓try a trace before signing up
- ✓monitor 1 competitor, weekly digest
- ✓no card, no password — just email
- ✓150 credits, never expire
- ✓5 full analyses (trace + timeline + verdict)
- ✓$3.98 per full analysis
- ✓works across every dashboard tool
- ✓usable from Claude Code, Cursor & Codex — via MCP
- ✓100 credits every month — unused ones stay
- ✓works across every tool — site and editor
- ✓an SEO agent on your own data
- ✓5 competitors monitored daily
- ✓unlimited traces, timeline & verdict unlocks on the site
- ✓fair use applies
Questions, answered
Anything else — support@tracetify.com
How is keyword difficulty calculated?
The score comes from DataForSEO Labs. It looks at the link profiles of the pages currently in the top ten for that keyword and expresses, on a 0–100 logarithmic scale, how hard it is to join them. Search volume comes from a separate source, Google Ads Keyword Planner, so the two numbers can disagree — a word can be searched often and still be easy.
Why does KD differ between tools?
Every tool computes its own difficulty from its own link index and its own formula, so scores are not comparable across tools. Compare words within one tool, not one word across tools. A KD of 22 here means "easier than the words we score 50," not the same thing as 22 in another product.
Does high volume mean I should target the keyword?
No. Volume tells you how many people search; difficulty tells you whether you can reach them. A word with 880 searches and KD 79 will send you nothing for a year. A word with 320 searches and KD 5 can send you traffic next month. That trade is the whole reason this table shows both numbers side by side.
Which market does it check?
You pick one of eight markets or worldwide. Search volume respects that choice. Difficulty needs a specific market to look at real search results, so when you choose worldwide the KD column is computed for the United States and labelled that way.
Is it free?
Signing up is free and comes with up to 10 credits. Each lookup of up to 10 keywords costs 2 credits, and repeating the same list within a week costs nothing. No card is needed to sign up.
Sign in, paste up to ten keywords, and see difficulty next to volume before you write a word.
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