By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

The Register reported earlier today that Microsoft AdCenter was making available Excel files containing search keywords that no-one was bidding on.   So this was your chance to peruse the list, find some keywords that you liked and grab them for a bargain.

The files were here on the front page for quite a while – but no longer.   The files have now been pulled, presumably by Microsoft, for reasons unknown.    But they were there long enough for me to download one of the files to have a good laugh at some of the keywords on offer.

For example, you could be at the top of the search results for “hairy women” (if that happens to be your niche).   Or how about some of the following :

• ‘big cracks’ (I hope they are referring to bypassing software serial numbers and not the alternative)
• ‘fresh girls’ (have they been put in the fridge for a few days?)
• ‘hitman pro’ (Edward Fox, you can now advertise your services on MSN Search!)
• ‘hide my ass’ (hide it?  Is that physically possible?  Plus why would you make a website about this?)
• ‘slap cheek virus’ (interesting name for a virus!   I can just see Wolf Blitzer in the CNN Situation Room trying to keep a straight face as he announces “The FBI has announced that a new computer virus called the ‘Slap Cheek Virus’ is running riot through peoples computers….”
• ‘jailbreak’ (hopefully this is about jailbreaking an iPhone and not about breaking out of jail.   “Hey boys!   Want a way out of this place?  MSN Search has the blueprints!”

From looking at the list I was able to download before they were all pulled by Microsoft, it’s pretty obvious why no-one is bidding on these keywords – because they are all low quality crap! Still it was good for a laugh, so the list isn’t a total write-off.

But any webmaster with a grain of sense won’t be putting their money anywhere near these keywords – not unless they like throwing it away.