by elana’s pantry

Previously most of Gluten Free Pages research into the gluten free market has concentrated on the online gluten free market as data is regularly reliable and recent. However all previous research and analysis has centred on Google Broad search data.

To explain the difference in the data (broad, phrase, exact match), Google provides the ability to see data for anything in terms of Broad match, phrase match and exact match. It also uses these terms to set up adwords (pay per click online advertising) campaigns. You can also either personally search for things in their search engine using broad/ phrase/ exact match characteristics by using appropriate quotes and brackets.

Match type Significance to gluten free market data

Broad match search data was used for GFP gluten free analysis because it included the full set of terms that people search for. In particular it was noticed in small markets (all countries below the top ten on a per capita basis), that using Google exact match would severely limit the data and knowledge that could be gained from the data sets.

For instances, China is an up and coming market. While this race may not be necessarily genetically pre disposed to celiac disease, the country has 1.3 billion people and potentially will either become a major importer or exporter of gluten free products.

In broad match terms China regularly has 32 terms counted and a volume of 9,638 searches per month.  In Exact phrase matches, China records only five gluten free associated terms and only 812 searches. As you can see the volume decreases by a factor of ten. Also the only terms included in Nov 2010 data are gluten (320), celiac disease (140); gluten free (110); celiac (46) and celiac disease (28).

This means that the analysis misses out on understanding (using broad match analysis) that China also searches for gluten free associated terms such as: gluten free rolls; gluten free recipes; gluten diet etc.

It would appear that the reason is that Google only displays data that reliably is in excess of ten searches a month. If Broad match to Exact match is typically a factor of ten, that means any terms under 100 searches a month in Broad phrase match, would not be displayed for exact match data– and for many countries, this removes many long tail terms. The table below shows that the difference between broad and exact search volumes is approximately a factor of ten.

Table of Search Volume and Term number for Gluten Free Broad and Exact Match search queries

.………………VOLUMES…………………………………………TERM No………………………Vol/Term

………….  ……Broad Vol ……Exact Vol………   V Ratio…Broad…Exact…. T Ratio….V/T

UK………….…1,203,082……124,278……….    9.7……….600……..313…..  1.9……..5.1

USA………….9,199,229…….796,432……….    11.6…….793………768…..  1.0…….. 11.2

Australia….1,228,333……..85,632…………    14.3……..657…….263……  2.5…….. 5.7

Canada….…1,155,348………97,599…………  11.8…….606………266…..  2.3…….. 5.2

Ireland………110,972………6,529…………..     17.0…… .209…….28……..  7.5…….. 2.3

China………..9,638……………812……………..    11.9…… 32……….5………..  6.4…….. 1.9

India…………70,804…………7,153…………..9.9……….   101……..24……..  4.2…….. 2.4

Brazil…………65,367………….9,710  …………6.7………. 32……….5………..  6.4…….. 1.1

Germany……98,191…………13,923………..    7.1…….. 103……..15……..  6.9…….. 1.0

France………151,135…………10,065…………15.0…..    82………  10………  8.2…….. 1.8

Italy…………47,405……………1,412  …………33.6……..  63………  8……….. 7.9…….. 4.3

HIGH VOLUME COUNTRY Match Discussion

The top five gluten free countries analysed areAmerica, Australia, Canada, Ireland and UK.

Americais the only country in terms of Broad match terms that comes close to recording a full 800 terms for gluten free associated terms. The reason that it doesn’t is that Google includes terms that it thinks are associated with gluten free (because of its analysis of search pattern algorithms) but they are too disparate to be included in this analysis. These terms are ones such as: quinoa, ‘ezekiel bread’ and ‘what is gout’.

For the top four countries, the ratio between broad and exact match volumes is close to TEN. This is both a factor of broad match ‘multiple counting’ for terms as well as in exact mode many of the phrases not having a large enough or consistent volume to be counted.

An example for the USA is that ‘gluten’ has a broad match volume of 2.24 million out of 9.9 million ‘gluten free associated’ searches for Oct 2010.  In EXACT MATCH mode, ‘gluten’ records  only 49,500 searches out of 672,000 ‘gluten free associated’ searches. You can see in broad match mode that ‘gluten’ accounts for about 25% of all searches, while in exact mode ‘gluten’ accounts for only about 7% of searches. This is because gluten is in broad match mode is counted multiple times for terms such as: gluten. gluten free, gluten free diets.

However, the ratio of broad to exact match volumes provide more information about the nature of the long tail keywords (multiple term, small volume). Notice that Australia has the highest ratio of Broad to Exact match volumes. This most likely means that the long tail search phrases make up a significant volume in the market, and that people have a more refined search habit.

Comparing UK, Canada and Australia they all have a similar volume of broad match terms however Australia has a significantly lower exact match volume (causing the higher broad to exact match volume ratio). While this may seem to indicate that the ‘real’ or exact searches in Canada and the UK make them a stronger market, later in this report it will be seen that Australia, even for exact match analysis, still records the highest ‘celiac search’ value per month – a  measure of ‘per capita’ comparisons.

LOW VOLUME Match discussion

While the majority of countries have a broad to exact match volumes are typically around TEN some countries are substantially above or below this ratio. For instance in Europe, France(15) and Italy (34) are well above the ratio. Europe is a unique case for the online gluten free market because having a high population of Europeans (who are most susceptible to celiac disease) they would be expected to have a high per capita search value. This is why it remains a mystery that European countries generally have a relatively low ‘celiac search’ value.

On the graph below the leading northern European countries to be well above the celiac search curve (under performing). The table above also shows that France has a relatively high ratio of broad to exact TERM numbers of 8.2 (not its volume ratio). This suggests that while France has a low ‘per capita’ search value (especially compared to other high ‘per capita wealth’ countries) it has a relatively long tail of broad match keywords, showing that the market while relatively small, is still quite diverse.

The ratio of the broad to exact match ‘Volume ratio’ to the broad to exact ‘Term ratio’ for each country is a VERY good indicator of how the country is performing on a per capita or ‘celiac search’ basis. You can see that the leading ‘celiac search’ countries (UK, USA, Australia and Canada) tend to have the highest ‘Volume ratio’ to ‘term ratio’ ratio value.  All of the four countries (except America) have aratio of around 5. The reason that the US doesn’t fit this pattern is that because of the sheer size of the market (has nearly 80% of the global search volumes for gluten free associated terms) its broad and exact term numbers are both near the maximum value of 800 causing this ratio to be near 1.0. The other leading countries have broad to exact ‘TERM NUMBER’ ratios that are closer to 2.0.

Of the countries that have under 2,000 exact searches per month, the ratio of the volume ratio to the Term ratio provides insight into their markets. For instance all the leading gf countries have a ratio of near five, while the lower countries usually record a ratio of between 1 and 2. Any anomalies to this ‘rule’ suggests a market behaving different to its like peers.

For instance Italy’sVolume ratio to TERM ration 4.3 is very high for one of the most under-performing European gluten free markets. Italy also has one of the lowest ‘celiac search’ values of European countries and a broad to exact search  Volume ratio of a very high 33. This is the largest ratio of all countries under analysis and along with a high ratio of 7.9 for the TERM ratio (63 broad terms to 8 exact terms). While this may suggest that the market may have diversity, the fact that it only has 8 exact search terms is because the other tail words have too low a volume to be recorded.

Israelis in a similar ‘anomaly’ position as Italy. While its Volume ratio to term ratios is 3.2 its ‘celiac search’ value (per capita) is on par with what is expected for a county with its per capita wealth. The 3.2 value is mainly high because it only has 6 recorded exact search terms, causing a high TERM Number broad to exact ratio of 9.0. The relatively high broad match volume 22,158 however does suggest that this market has considerably diversity (long tail broad match search terms).

Search Volume comparison Gluten and Gluten free, exact and broad match

Note that while ‘gluten’ or ‘gluten free’ are not always the top searched keywords, for example the highest volume exact match term in Canada for gluten free associated terms is celiac disease. They typilcally are two of the top three volume terms across most countries. The table below shows the  broad and exact volumes for these two terms, and their ratio for ten countries.

………….”Gluten”………………………………………………”     Gluten Free”

…………. Broad Vol……….  Exact Vol….Ratio……….Broad Vol….Exact Vol….Ratio

UK…….. 301,000………….  6,600………46…………….201,000…….3,600   ……….56.

USA……  2,240,000……….  49,500…….45……………1,500,000…..27,100…….55

Austral…201,000…………   5,400………37…………….165,000………4,400……..38

Canada..301,000…………  6,600………46…………….201,000………2,400………84

China…. 2,400……………..  320…………8………………880…………….110…………..8

India….. 9,900……………..  1,300………8………………4,400…………170…………..26

Italy…… 9,900……………..  480…………21…………….6,600…………210…………..31

Spain…. 74,000……………. 3,600………21…………….2,900…………170…………..17

Note there is no discernable relationship between ‘per capita’ search values and the ‘Gluten to Gluten free’ Exact match search volume ratio.

You can see that the four leading countries (UK, USA, Australia, Canada)  have a gluten (broad to exact volume ratio) or around 40 and a gluten free (broad to exact volume ratio) that varies between 38 and 84. This shows in large volume gluten free markets, that the single term ‘gluten’ has a characteristic ratio and is typically much larger than most other countries.

The high population, lowest gluten broad to exact match ratio countries of Chinaand Indiahave the lowest gluten ratios of 8.0(compared to USA 45). Germanyis one of the most underperforming online gluten free markets in Europe and is shown here to have one of the lowest gluten broad to exact ratios of 4.0. It also has the lowest ‘Volume ratio to Term ratio’ value of 1.0 from the previous table. It would appear that the characteristics of very underperforming countries is to have a low ‘gluten’ to ‘gluten free’ ratio.

CONCLUSION

This article has explored the relationship between broad match and exact match terms in the global gluten free online market.

When all countries were compared it was seen that the leading countries all have a broad to exact match gluten free associated volume ratio of near ten. Other countries vary between 3.3 and 33. In regards to the term numbers that make up these volumes the top four countries again had similar ratios between broad and exact matches Volume to Term number ratio of between 1 and 2.5. In this case all other countries tend to have a much higher term number ratio (mostly because the lower tail terms have too low or inconsistent volumes to be recorded in exact match data.

The final conclusions to be drawn from this table is that when the two ratios (broad to exact volume ratio compared to broad to exact term number ratio) are compared three of the top countries have a value of near five, while the USA has a value of 11.2 (because it has nearly 800 terms in both broad and exact match data). It is very noticeable that most other countries have a ratio to ratio value much less than the standard 5.

When the ratio of the term ‘gluten’ broad to exact match volumes are compared, the leading countries ratio all fit between 37 and 46. All other countries have a lower value. The more under- performing the market, the lower the value – China and India have a value of 8.0. Similarly, but not as pronounced, is the difference between the leading ‘per capital’ gluten free market countries ‘gluten free’ broad to exact volume ratios. The leading countries have values of 38 to 84 while the lesser markets typically have ratios of 30 or less.

Higher Celiac search values (gluten free online demand) are likely to lead to more manufacturers producing gluten free goods which will decrease prices.

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