What exactly does “keyword” mean in the context of AdSense CPC?

Question

I have read in a lot of places that CPC depends on the value of "keywords". However I don't understand what this means. I will set forward some scenarios.

1. Suppose I run a blog about knitting and this is a low paying niche. However I suddenly write five frontpage blog posts about forex trading and insurance. When people click on the frontpage ads, would I be getting paid for the low CPC knitting content or for the high paying forex content?

2. Suppose somebody finds my webpage by searching for knitting. However the actual content of the landing page is filled with high paying keywords. Is the CPC for this page determined by the low paying search or the high paying content?

Answer 1

Google puts Adwords on a page based off of relevance to the content of the page. So if a visitor came to your page on forex trading and insurance and those were high paying keywords then your adwords ads would have a higher CPC and thus you would get paid more.

Remember though once Google sees your front page and 5 most recent posts are no longer about knitting don't expect those pages to show up in SERPs for knitting any longer.

I don't know if you Google refreshes adwords when it re-crawls your site but if it does then except to get no value from writing those forex pages in the hopes of getting knitters there as the adwords would change when you get reindexed and removed from the knitting SERPs.

As a whole this seems like an underhanded trick to try and get increased adwords revenue. Remember though if you get knitters to your site and they find info on forex trading they are probably even less likely to click on adword links about something they care nothing about.

Answer 2

I am going to answer your scenarios, but feel free to ask more questions relating to my answers and I will answer them as best as possible.

1.) For your knitting blog, AdSense will take the strongest keywords -- that is, the keywords that appear to be most prevalent on the page and are prevalent in Google's database of available ads. However mixing content like this, while not necessarily underhanded isn't the best tactic when it comes to SEO. Furthermore, you have a high chance of diluting high paying keywords with low paying keywords. Also, if you are getting search engine traffic from people looking for information about knitting, they would be more likely to click an ad related to knitting than an ad about forex. Your best bet would be to target the two different audiences with two separate sites. From an SEO standpoint, I'm sure forex is a saturated market in the search engines, but there are probably many longtail keywords you could go for. This is likely a concern for you as it sounds like you're looking for a way to get those high paying keywords without having to do the difficult task of ranking against PR5s, 6s, and 7s in the search engines.

2.) If someone comes to your page looking for knitting stuff from a search result like, "How to Knit" chances are they will be served an ad related to knitting. While ads shown are highly based on your content, ads also highly relate to the keyword a person used to find your site. Also, think about your audience. If you write a great site about knitting, people may link to you and come back. If they come to your site and see a bunch of stuff about forex, they may quickly leave without viewing any further content as they can see right away that the website isn't related to their search.

I hope this helps.

Answer 3

Remember though once Google sees your front page and 5 most recent post are no longer about knitting dont expect those pages to show up in SERP for knitting any longer.