The Value of Words: Google Adsense Keyword Tool

After I wrote "The Secret to Making Money on Hubpages", I got a lot of helpful hints from fellow hubbers. One of them was: "Use the Google Adsense Keyword Tool". It was good advice. But I was reluctant to follow it. Why? Because I was afraid it wasn't going to be any fun. My philosophy is: if it's not fun, don't do it!

But... I tried it anyway. And guess what? It is fun!

I'm a linguist. I love words. I have always believed in the value of words. Here is a tool that can help you find out just how much a word is worth! Believe me, not all words are equal. And just to prove it, I will show you how to determine the current market value of the biggest word you ever heard!

But first, let's have a musical interlude to get us in the mood!

Let's say that you have a website or webpage that features the lyrics to Supercalifragisticexpialidocious, and you are wondering what keywords to use and how often each of them is searched per month. Well, you go to Google Adsense Keyword Tool, and you input the URL of your website, and they will give you the answer. You can do it yourself, or you can look at the screenshot below.

The linguists at Google know that the value of a word is not absolute, but rather is entirely dependent on the context in which it is found. They will not tell you how much a keyword is worth until you give them a URL with actual content. For instance, when I gave them the URL of my last hub, they showed me dollar and cents figures for phrases involving chopsticks.

So how much is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious worth on a site where the lyrics to the song appear? I don't actually know. When I tried to input it, the Google Adsense Search-based tool told me it was none of my beeswax. They said that site was in no way connected to my Adsense account.

Still, it's good to know that every word has a market value. And I'm betting that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is worth a whole lot more than "ape language studies."

Google is also willing to give an estimate of the cost per click of a word without being given a specific context. This is really just an estimate, but according to this information, the cost per click for the biggest word you ever heard would be fifty-eight cents. That's with a global monthly search of 158,000. The cost per click, of course, is not the same as the earnings per click. I think that would be much less.

How does the estimated cost per click of the biggest word you ever heard compare to the phrase "ape language studies"? Ape language studies is estimated to cost five cents per click.

Note to self: write more hubs about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and fewer hubs about ape language studies! Alternatively, I could just sprinkle the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious into my hubs about ape language studies. Maybe nobody will notice!

I have learned a lot from this investigation of the Google Adsense Keyword Tool. It is fun and easy to use. The information it supplies is quite illuminating. I have always believed in the value of words. I just never imagined that it could be determined this precisely!

(c) 2009 Aya Katz