WSJ article on $90 keywords creates Overture ads which...

...pay $90. (Give that reporter a bonus!)

[258cib]

An article in the WSJ today reports on some news on lawyers bidding up some keywords which I have read here before. (It's very tough to scoop WebmasterWorld.)

What's funny is that WSJ.com has just started running Overture contextual ads at the bottom of their articles. And, sure enough, there we the ads on those expensive keywords.

Here are a few highlights of the feature (subscription-only):

Here are the prices yesterday on Overture, according to WSJ, on some prime keywords:
Mesothelioma attorney $70.24
Car accident lawyer 50
Investment fraud 30
Wisconsin mortgage 19
Conference calling 18.22
Casino 14.97

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[webmasterworld.com...]
[google.com...]

[ergophobe]

[edit] The part I was responding to was the bit about a firm cancelling ads when they found it was costing them $8K/month at $90/click so they just bought up unused domains and had them redirect to their site [/edit]

Makes me think of a new strategy. If I were a lawyer trying to compete with these guys, I'd create a click-through sweatshop in Malaysia. Using underage workers being paid 30 cents per thousand click throughs, they keep searching and clicking on my competitors until the competitors can't afford to run Overture keywords anymore.

On my web site I would then have banner ads about all we are doing to spread technology education to the developing countries.

Sorry for the spam... I get this way when I don't have enough sleep!

Tom

[LizardGroupie]

Wow! I'm going to create some sites about those keywords, put AdSense ads on them, get 1000 links to the sites. I can get any site to the top of Google in a few weeks. And those are some sweet commissions. I'll be driving a Porsche a year from now! Yes!

[nakulgoyal]

Let me know when you are driving your Porsche! :-)

[xiamen2]

If you create a web site for those expensive keyword, and attract traffic to click adsense. Will Google ban you?

[mcavill]

>>I can get any site to the top of Google in a few weeks.

let me know when you've managed got a meso site to the top - there's a couple of other people out there that are quite good at SEO in that area :)

>>Will Google ban you?

Nope, but I think it's against the TOS just to put out junk with adsense on it, IMHO as long as it's a useful site, you should be OK...

[Leosghost]

<<Nope, but I think it's against the TOS just to put out junk with adsense on it, IMHO as long as it's a useful site, you should be OK...>>

When you take a look at what they return as "relevant" since 6 months do you honestly think they apply these criteria .....

Ergophobe ...I do know of at least 3 businesses which were bankrupted when hosted on France Telecom servers in the late 90's this way ...

The deal was that all traffic to /from your site over 100megs per month was billed at 10$ per meg overun ..this done at 6 monthly intervals via direct debit ....

The competitor sites here ( who had friends in the USA ) just had their friends continually call up the sites in question via their USA ISP's....

One of these sites belonged to a friend of mine who found himself 30,000 $ lighter on his bank account and with no legal redress .....( he discovered when a small check he wrote bounced )...OK his bank should have told him ..no they just let his small business account get cleaned out ....and the host company ( an offshoot of the nationalised phone company who was his default ISP ) ....then took his house away through the courts for the additional debts ....

Now that the rates have all fallen this couldn't happen again ( for this service ) but the idea is probably still usable ...

[ergophobe]

Wow, that's tragic. I vaguely remembering hearing about that stuff. Now my attempt at humor makes me a little sad thinking that there may actually be a lawyer out there doing it (we are talking about mass tort lawyers after all).

Tom

[xbase234]

There was an interesting story at the "Click Fraud" panel discussion at SES Chicago last December.

One presenter noted that she busted someone who was running up her client's PPC campaign (client was an attorney). Turns out that the guilty party was an attorney that specialized in internet fraud. No joke.

[marttali]

Lets go clickin' :)

[Leosghost]

<<Turns out that the guilty party was an attorney that specialized in internet fraud. No joke.>>

Nice to know that in this rapidly changing HI TECH world some things you can still count on to remain constant...

The ills of the world can be easily explained when you consider that most world leaders were lawyers before being elected ....

If that wasn't enough to guarrantee it the rest of them are mainly generals and religious leaders ...

Some are /have been all three .....

[blaze]

Interesting results when you check compare Google vrs Overture..

Here is what I got:

Target: all
Google: (google shows estimated clicks)

Mesothelioma attorney 7.0 $24.69
Car accident lawyer 5.1 $18.76
Investment fraud 3.3 $15.79
Wisconsin mortgage 4.6 $6.65
Conference calling 13.0 $35.38
Casino < 0.1 $0.00

Overture: (overture shows total searches..)

mesothelioma attorney 5,799 7.56
car accident lawyer 4,601 20.07
investment fraud 3,706 30.00
wisconsin mortgage 3,608 19.00
conference calling 5,595 16.24
casino 996,364 6.50

[danieljean]

This is absolutely insane. Shouldn't the more precise keyword be generally higher than the generic one?

I checked for "mesothelomia", and the top 2 overture bidders are at $60.44 and $60.43. After that $30.00, $15.82, $15.81, $11.02...

For "mesothelomia lawyer" we have $51.11, $51.10 and $8.04.

I guess these lawyers are making nice money :)

[blaze]

zero traffic tho.

[woop01]

I like to click on a meso listing and one personal injury listing a day just to make myself feel good about screwing over a lawyer.