For a decade now, those intent on making high dollars with AdSense have sought to monopolize high paying keywords such as Mesothelioma. With the advent of AdSense’s new Interest-Based Advertising, it is reasonable to ask the question: Are high paying keywords a thing of the past? Is this, finally, the end of Mesothelioma?

High Paying Keywords and Placement Targeted Advertising

Historically, AdSense has relied on placement targeted advertising to deliver relevant contextual advertising to your web site visitors. Thus, if you have a site about golf, all of the AdSense ads placed on your site would be somehow related to golf and thus appeal to your visitors.

Those seeking to earn high dollars with AdSense learned over time that all keywords were not created equal. In fact, while you may earn .05 (yes, 5 cents) from an ad about toothpaste, you could earn more than $10 per click from ad about DUI or insurance. On this list, we see that the term “Austin DWI” pays in excess of $80 (yes, 80 dollars) per click.

Throughout the years, the leading high paying keyword has been Mesothelioma. Why do these terms such as “Mesothelioma” and “Austin DWI” pay so much?

To answer that question, we simply need to logically ask Who Pays This Amount? and What do They Get Out of It?

For example, with “Austin DWI”, we can make some assumptions: Austin, TX is a college town, filled with many privileged kids (and wealthy, young Dell Stockholders) who like to go out, get drunk, and have a good time. Thus, when they get popped for a DWI, it will cost them $7-$15k to get this DWI matter resolved. Lawyers are willing to pay $80 per click to get this return.

Similarly, the lawyers are willing to pay this for the term Mesothelioma because there are many class action suits brought about by lawyers on behalf of clients who have acquired this type of cancer in the workplace. Again, the rewards are huge and the lawyers are willing to pay to attract their clients.

The pioneers of making money with AdSense all tried to capitalize on terms such as Mesothelioma and other class-action lawsuit type of words such as Asbestos. In the beginning with little competition, these pioneers made lots of money. It is still possible today to maximize AdSense revenue by focusing on high paying keyword topics though the competition is much more fierce.

However, with the switch from placement-targeted advertising to interest-based advertising, we can reasonably ask the question: Is their party over? Is the future chase for high paying keywords a thing of the past? Is the new AdSense interest-Based Advertising model the end of Mesothelioma and Austin DWI? And perhaps most importantly, how will these AdSense changes affect the AdSense revenue on your website?

AdSense Interest-Based Advertising: The Paradigm Shift

AdSense is moving from away from placement-targeted advertising and towards Interest-based advertising. Like with most things Google-based, we are not given much of the detail. We know that this change will take place gradually and, in general, what it means.

Many of you have seen the notice to update your websites privacy policy. In fact, if you check your AdSense account, you will see the notice that you should have updated your privacy policy by April 8^th, 2009, which is a few months back.

(If you have not done so yet, be sure that you update your privacy policy now. You are welcome to use my privacy policy if you would like. Just remember to change the site name.)

The reason that you need to update your site’s privacy policy is for the new AdSense Interest Based Advertising. Google’s AdSense will now place a cookie, a double-dart cookie no less!, on your web site visitors’ computers. This cookie will then track their Interest behaviors and, Google hopes, deliver more relevant ads to your visitors and deliver you more money.

Thus, with this new policy, if you have a site about football, a visitor may see an ad about teeth whitening if he or she has visited many sites about teeth whitening in the past.

This is a great thing…except if your site has been optimized for Mesothelioma or Austin DWI.

If you have a site optimized for Mesothelioma, a high-paying keyword, and visitors are delivered ads about tennis shoes because they have just visited the Nike store, you may lose a lot of money.

Conversely though, if you run a site about tennis shoes, a visitor may be delivered an ad about Mesothelioma if they have searched for this term in the past. This will make the average web site owner much more money than an ad about tennis shoes!

Does this portend the end of sites being created solely to monopolize on high paying keywords?

Not necessarily…for three reasons.

First, it is possible to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising. To do this, visit the Google page entitled Can I opt out of interest-based advertising for my site? If you visit this page, you will see all the warnings and disclaimers which basically say, “If you opt out, we don’t like you anymore.” I don’t think many people will opt out but it is an option.

Second, Google has indicated that their model will be somewhat of a hybrid…a combination of content and cookie based advertising. This means that, if you have a site optimized for Mesothelioma, you may see two ads for Mesothelioma and two ads for q-tips.

And finally, third…follow the money. Google is not in the business to decrease revenue. While they want to improve the user-experience, they will not easily throw-away a cash cow. When you hear that a click pays $20-$80, guess who takes more than half of that?

Interest-Based Advertising vs Placement Targeted Advertising: Summary

Google’s new AdSense Interest-Based Advertising benefits most web-site owners. The goal of the program is to provide more relevant ads based on a visitors Internet patterns, achieve more ad clicks, and make you more money which of course makes Google more money.

However, if you create a site based solely on high-paying keywords, you will not like this new policy. As mentioned, you can opt out of the Interest-Based Advertising policy but you probably will not because then you are opting out on all of your websites. And if the new program works, Google may eventually do away with Placement Targeted Advertising all together.

So, does Interest-Based Advertising signal the end of Mesothelioma and other high paying keyword sites?

Not immediately…but one can sense the end may not be to far off…