commercial intent
Also called: commercial investigation, commercial keyword, commercial intent keywords
Commercial intent is the search intent behind queries where someone is researching or comparing products and services before buying, signaled by modifiers like "best," "review," "vs," and "top." It sits between informational and transactional intent in the buyer's journey.
Commercial-intent queries (also called commercial investigation) are the “still deciding” layer of search. The person has a problem and a budget, but wants to weigh options first. Typical patterns look like best CRM for agencies, Ahrefs vs Semrush, [product] review, or is X worth it.
Where it sits in the four intent types
The three-part model comes from Andrei Broder’s 2002 taxonomy: navigational, informational, transactional. The SEO industry later split off a fourth bucket, commercial investigation, to name the gap between “just learning” and “ready to buy.” So the ladder runs:
- Informational:
how does link building work - Commercial:
best link building services - Transactional:
hire a link building agency
Same topic, different job. Someone typing best link building services does not want a definition and is not at checkout yet. They want a shortlist, a comparison, and proof.
That is why commercial pages rank differently. Google, and increasingly AI answer engines, tend to serve roundups, comparison tables, and review-style pages for these queries rather than thin service copy. Point a hard-sell landing page at best [x] and you usually lose to a listicle. The fix is matching the format the SERP rewards: side-by-side comparisons, honest pros and cons, pricing, and specifics. Commercial terms usually carry lower volume than informational ones but far higher conversion, because the reader is one decision away from buying.
How it affects your traffic
Commercial-intent keywords are where SEO turns into pipeline, so they should anchor a strategy, not sit at its edges. In an SEO consulting engagement we map your keyword set by intent, isolate the mid- and bottom-funnel "best," "vs," and "review" terms your buyers actually type, and match each one to a page format the SERP (and AI Overviews) will rank. That shifts effort away from high-volume informational traffic that rarely converts and toward the smaller set of queries that bring in ready-to-decide buyers.
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