Gambling dominates UK list of priciest (and misspelled) paid search keywords

Gambling-related subjects dominate a recent list of the most expensive (and occasionally misspelled) keywords in the UK’s paid search market.

On Thursday, Search Engine Watch published a list of what it claims are the 100 most expensive keywords in the UK online market. The list was gleaned from a SEMrush dataset of 12m keywords and the average price paid for each on Google AdWords during March 2016.

Topping the list at a whopping £148.51 per click was the phrase “play live blackjack.” In fact, gambling-related terms occupied the entire top-10, all but three positions in the top-25, and 77 out of the entire 100-strong list.

Even the three non-gambling positions in the top-25 are only technically out of step with the pack. All three are lumped into the ‘finance’ category, and the highest ranked of these (at #12) is ‘spreadbetting offers’ (£118.03). To find a truly non-gambling/finance product, you have to go all the way down to #28, when ‘big data systems’ (£97.76) makes an appearance.