How long is a long-tailed keyword?

Chances are, if you know about long-tail keywords, you know about SEO.

MYTH: Long-tail keywords always contain at least 4 words.

FACT: The word "long" has nothing to do with length of a phrase.

First, let's be clear that "keyword" actually means "word or phrase used in an online search-engine query."

So what is a long-tail search query? It's a query that gets made so seldom, it's at the tail end of searches. Meaning that it doesn't get searched on much. So why are people chasing these?

If you're thinking long-tail keywords are an alternative if you can't get your site found for hyper-competitive phrases in your industry, they're not.

The search engines have stated that there is a certain number of unique searches.  There's a veritable graveyard of in these never-to-be-repeated search queries — where long-tail keywords go to die.