Keyword Tips

March Madness keyword analysis

Well, March Madness is upon us. The 2006 NCAA Tournament is underway and basketball fans everywhere are monitoring their NCAA brackets. This got us thinking: what if the tournament were to play out based off of CPCs (in the top positions regardless of click volume) instead of actual games and points? Which schools have the most valuable names?

So, how does it all play out? Well, the Texas Longhorns come out of Atlanta, hardly working up a sweat, with only the Syracuse Orange and LSU Tigers putting up anything resembling a fight. Oakland sees the closest competition with the Arkansas Razorbacks barely making it past the Kansas Jayhawks in the third round and then the Xavier Musketeers who narrowly defeat the UCLA Bruins. The Boston College Eagles wipe out everyone in Minneapolis, including darkhorses the Villanova Wildcats and the Oklahoma Sooners. The UNC Tarheels experience essentially no resistance whatsoever out of the weakest division in Washington DC.

Lastly, the Final Four plays out with the Texas Longhorns eliminating the UNC Tarheels to meet the Boston College Eagles who wiped out the Arkansas Razorbacks. The tournament champion ends up being the Boston College Eagles who really had no competition at all as, from a CPC perspective, they were the only team with a CPC coming in over the two dollar mark. Check out the brackets below to see how all the other teams fared.

Atlanta   Oakland (1) Duke Blue Devils ($0.47-0.66) (16) Southern Jaguars ($0.05-0.55) (8) George Washington Colonials ($0.70-0.87) (9) UNC-Wilmington Seahawks ($0.00-2.67) (5) Syracuse Orange ($1.13-1.41) (12) Texas A&M Aggies ($1.03-1.33) (4) LSU Tigers ($0.74-1.11) (13) Iona Gaels ($0.24-0.34) (6) West Virginia Mountaineers ($0.56-0.84) (11) Southern Illinois Salukis ($0.64-0.83) (3) Iowa Hawkeyes ($0.35-0.53) (14) Northwestern State Demons ($0.00-0.00) (7) California Golden Bears ($0.68-0.89) (10) NC State Wolfpack ($0.80-1.00) (2) Texas Longhorns ($1.31-1.73) (15) Pennsylvania Quakers ($0.42-0.53) (1) Memphis Tigers ($0.48-0.70) (16) Oral Roberts Golden Eagles (no data) (8) Arkansas Razorbacks ($0.95-1.43) (9) Bucknell Bison ($0.05-0.50) (5) Pittsburgh Panthers ($0.61-0.87) (12) Kent State Golden Flashes ($0.00-0.39) (4) Kansas Jayhawks ($1.02-1.33) (13) Bradley Braves ($0.26-0.38) (6) Indiana Hoosiers ($0.55-0.79) (11) San Diego State Aztecs ($0.62-0.93) (3) Gonzaga Bulldogs ($0.74-0.97) (14) Xavier Musketeers ($1.06-1.32) (7) Marquette Golden Eagles ($0.69-0.94) (10) Alabama Crimson Tide ($0.67-0.88) (2) UCLA Bruins ($0.99-1.23) (15) Belmont Bruins (no data) Washington, D.C.   Minneapolis (1) Connecticut Huskies ($0.77-0.96) (16) Albany Great Danes ($0.05-0.05) (8) Kentucky Wildcats ($0.55-0.71) (9) UAB Blazers ($0.49-0.66) (5) Washington Huskies ($0.41-0.62) (12) Utah State Aggies ($0.17-0.35) (4) Illinois Fighting Illini ($0.51-0.76) (13) Air Force Falcons ($0.33-0.55) (6) Michigan State Spartans ($0.48-0.64) (11) George Mason Patriots (no data) (3) UNC Tarheels ($1.06-1.59) (14) Murray State Racers ($0.05-0.07) (7) Wichita State Shockers ($0.17-0.28) (10) Seton Hall Pirates ($0.23-0.39) (2) Tennessee Volunteers ($0.54-0.81) (15) Winthrop Eagles (no data) (1) Villanova Wildcats ($0.77-1.11) (16) Monmouth Hawks ($0.05-0.08) (8) Arizona Wildcats ($0.42-0.58) (9) Wisconsin Badgers ($0.61-0.91) (5) Nevada Wolfpack ($0.48-0.60) (12) Montana Grizzlies ($0.40-0.50) (4) Boston College Eagles ($1.41-2.11) (13) Pacific Tigers ($0.11-0.19) (6) Oklahoma Sooners ($0.92-1.33) (11) Wisconsin Milwaukee Panthers (no data) (3) Florida Gators ($0.47-0.70) (14) South Alabama Jaguars (no data) (7) Georgetown Hoyas ($0.51-0.77) (10) Northern Iowa Panthers ($0.23-0.42) (2) Ohio State Buckeyes ($0.64-0.96) (15) Davidson Wildcats ($0.28-0.40)

The Sopranos keyword analysis

The sixth season of The Sopranos starts tomorrow night. It got us wondering what Sopranos-related keywords were worth given the year and a half break since season five. For the most part, the majority of the keywords we looked at (including the actor and character names) were worth very little, received low search volume, and were estimated to have low click volume. The terms with some potential included: Sopranos, Soprano, Sopranos season, Tony Soprano, Sopranos video, Sopranos DVD, Sopranos episodes, HBO Sopranos, and Sopranos soundtrack. And, if we had to guess, we'd keep an eye on the following terms to increase in at least search volume after tomorrow evening: Sopranos premiere, Sopranos season 6, and Sopranos rumors.

Saturday Night Live (SNL) keyword analysis

Y'know, we've heard a lot of people complaining about how bad SNL has gotten. But we recall a time when people thought the Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri days were mediocre. And let's face it, in retrospect, those days weren't that bad.

That said, let's not sell the current Saturday Night Live crew too short. Maya Rudolph's Donatella Versace rules and Tina Fey is still a geek goddess of humor despite being paired with Amy Poehler instead of keyWorthy favorite Jimmy Fallon for Weekend Update

Let's look at this in terms of the SNL-related keywords shall we? Cast members' names, regardless of era or popularity, aren't really worth much as CPC keyword ads. You'll find a pretty sad range of CPCs from $0.05 to $0.75 on average, not to mention relatively low search volume and click expectancy. There are two former SNL cast members whose names who not only garner decent CPCs (in the $2.00-3.00 range) but also get decent search volume: Billy Crystal and Chevy Chase. As far as related terms go, SNL, Saturday Night Live, and Chronicles of Narnia are the high search volume terms, the last being a stretch as a "related term" due to the Will Parnell and Andy Samberg "Lazy Sunday" rap parody. The shocking revelation of this analysis is that "more cowbell" (a reference to the skit with Christopher Walken as a producer working on Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper") is actually worth $1.00 to $2.00 a click in the top positions!

Enjoy tonight's show with host Matt Dillon and musical guest Arctic Monkeys!

How to stalk Bigdaddy's rampage across the Internet

Google's Bigdaddy update is wreaking Godzilla-like havok on a lot of people's sites. Webmasters are seeing large numbers of pages (particularly newer ones from the last three months) getting de-indexed. They're also seeing many of their theoretically valid pages "going supplemental" -- marked as supplemental in the SERPs -- which potentially indicates that the new Bigdaddy datacenters no longer view these pages as important. Many are fearing that these pages will also be delisted. Another scary thing people have noticed, is that some dead links are somehow making it to the top of the SERPs over live and completely legitimate pages.

We love Google like McAdams loves Gosling, but weird stuff like the above is definitely worrisome. Nevermind that keyWorthy's lost a whole pile of pages on the Bigdaddy datacenters; we're more concerned about Google providing less then useful results for searches.

To keep an eye on things, you may want to check out Tony Hill's Bigdaddy tool. (We've noticed that as of this posting, we're seeing non-Bigdaddy results on 216.239.57.104 and inconsistent Bigdaddy results on 64.233.187.99.)

Keyword Search

*Keyword lists are not in a definitive ranked order. Keywords in the list are editorial selections made by the staff based on subjective relevance and should not be interpretted as scientifically confirmed rankings.

Google keyword and traffic estimator tools

Not much to this post other than that Google has recently updated their keyword and traffic estimator tools in the AdWords system. (Both of the previous links require login.)

The improvements to the keyword tool are incredibly useful. You can now view additional information about the suggested keywords including keyword popularity, cost and ad position estimates (based on max CPC bids), and possible negative keywords. For the traffic estimator tool, rather than only providing you with estimates for number one position, the tool now provides you with ranges for both CPC bids and click volume for something in the top three). There's also a search volume rank bar that we haven't quite gauged the value of in terms of selecting words to optimize your sites. More to come if we pick up any new tips and tricks.