The short version
- Real demand, almost no competition. “Anal bleaching” gets 7,900 searches a month in the US and 20,000 worldwide. Every related search we checked scores between 0 and 5 out of 100 on difficulty.
- The winners are barely trying. A clinic page with one link from another website and about 450 words ranks on the first page of Google. A small store outranks Wikipedia and Healthline.
- The lesson is about pricing. Categories people are embarrassed to name are priced as if nobody searched for them. Every market has a version of this, B2B included.
- If you buy SEO, ask which unglamorous searches your competitors avoid, and whether what you already have (reviews, prices, a phone number) is visible where the buyer decides. Questions to take to your team are at the end.
Every figure below comes from Ahrefs and was pulled on 2026-08-11.
Why we looked at a market this uncomfortable
Savage Keyword takes an odd search term each episode and uses it to show one thing about how search demand really behaves. Uncomfortable markets are the clearest examples, because the discomfort keeps serious competitors out, so the demand stays visible and cheap.
We also start with a correction to ourselves. When we pitched this series internally, we quoted 55,000 searches a month worldwide for this keyword. That figure was a total across many related searches, presented as if it were one phrase. The 15 related searches we could actually verify add up to 29,950 worldwide, and the exact phrase does 20,000. We retired our own number. If an agency ever shows you a single impressive keyword figure, ask whether it is one search or a bundle of them. Here the bundle was almost three times the real phrase.
The market in plain numbers
Two terms to know. Difficulty is Ahrefs’ estimate, from 0 to 100, of how hard it is to reach the first page of Google; Ahrefs calls 0 to 10 easy. Cost per click is what advertisers pay Google for one visit, a rough price tag on how much a searcher is worth.
| Search term | US searches a month | Worldwide | Difficulty | Advertisers pay per click |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| anal bleaching | 7,900 | 20,000 | 12 | $0.70 |
| anal bleaching near me | 800 | 1,100 | 0 | $1.20 |
| home remedies for anal bleaching | 800 | 900 | 0 | $1.40 |
| what is anal bleaching | 600 | 1,200 | 1 | $0.05 |
| diy anal bleaching | 400 | 500 | 2 | $0.70 |
| anal bleaching before and after | 350 | 1,200 | 1 | $2.50 |
| anal bleaching kit | 250 | 1,000 | 3 | $0.60 |
| anal bleaching cream | 250 | 1,400 | 5 | $0.60 |
The eight searches sum to 11,350 a month in the US. Three patterns matter for anyone who sells.
“Near me” is someone ready to book a local appointment. “Kit” and “cream” are shoppers, and for both, worldwide demand is four to six times the US figure, so a store that ships internationally is looking at a much larger market than US data suggests. And “before and after” carries the highest price advertisers pay in the whole cluster, $2.50 a click. Advertisers pay most for the searches where buyers look for proof, which tells you what the buyer is anxious about before they spend.
The embarrassment discount
This is the lesson of the episode. An awkward topic keeps its demand and loses its supply. Fewer companies write about it, fewer agencies pitch it, fewer brand teams want it in a board deck. The result is a market where real, paying demand meets almost no competition, and where modest effort ranks on the first page.
Your market has its own version, even if nothing about it is embarrassing. In B2B it is usually the searches a brand team finds unflattering: “[your product] alternatives”, “[your product] pricing”, “[competitor] vs [you]”, “how to cancel [category tool]”, or the plain-language description of the problem your product solves, phrased the way a frustrated customer would type it. Those searches come from people close to a decision. Many companies leave them to review sites and competitors because the pages feel awkward to publish.
What decides who ranks here
We opened the pages on the first page of Google. Two of them explain the market.
Seventh place: a San Diego clinic’s service page (sdcolons.com). Its authority score is 5 out of 100. One other website links to it. It has roughly 450 words, and it still ranks on the first page, drawing an estimated 721 visits a month. That is what low competition looks like in practice.
Third place: a small store’s product page (bryghtenup.com). An authority score of 42 and 74 links, against Wikipedia (97) and Healthline (92), which rank below it. Healthline’s page runs to roughly 3,500 words with a named author and full medical page markup. What the store has that the encyclopedias lack is a direct answer to the buying question: here is the product, here is the price.
What they already have, and what the buyer cannot see
Both winners are leaving easy value unused. These are details a buyer would notice, and each is a small fix. Everything below was checked on the pages on 2026-08-11.
- Reviews the search result never shows. The store displays 77 customer reviews, 86% of them five stars. The page lacks the code that lets Google show those stars in the search result, so a shopper comparing results sees none of them.
- A price only a human can find. The clinic states its price in the copy ($125 a session, two to four sessions typical), with no structured pricing that search engines can pick up reliably.
- Answers without the matching format. The clinic’s page is organized around four questions (what it is, the benefits, the process, the recovery) with no question-and-answer markup, which helps search engines and AI tools read them as answers.
- A phone number you cannot tap. The clinic’s main call to action is a phone number written as plain text. On a phone, the one thing the page wants you to do takes copying and pasting.
The general point for any company: before paying for more traffic, check that what you already have (reviews, prices, credentials, a way to contact you) is visible at the moment the buyer compares options. It is the cheapest growth most sites have.
Ranking and being quoted by AI are separate contests
Google shows an AI-written summary above the results for this search, and it cites 10 sources. Four of them also rank in the top 10. The other six do not rank on the first page at all. The store in third place, the one making money here, is not cited. Neither is the clinic.
We looked at AI summaries across 30 searches in How common are AI Overviews?, and this page is a clean example of what that study shows: a page can rank well and still be absent from the answer most people read first. If your agency reports rankings only, you are seeing half of the picture.
What we would do with this market
If a store or clinic in this category hired us, the plan would follow from the data:
- Own the proof searches first. “Before and after” is where advertisers pay the most, so a genuine, well-documented results page is worth more here than another explainer.
- Show what you already have. Stars for the reviews, readable prices, tappable contact details. An afternoon of work each.
- Build for the international buyer. The product searches are four to six times larger worldwide than in the US.
- Write the answers AI can quote: clear, accurate, attributed explanations of the safety questions, since that is where the AI summary picks its sources.
Two constraints shape the rest. Ad platforms, payment providers and affiliate networks restrict this category, so organic search has to do the work paid media would do elsewhere. And it is a health topic, which raises the bar for accuracy and makes thin pages a liability.
Questions to ask your own SEO team
These apply to any market:
- Which searches near a buying decision are we avoiding because the pages feel awkward (pricing, alternatives, comparisons, complaints)?
- When you quote a keyword’s size, is it one search or a bundle of related ones?
- Are our reviews, prices and contact details visible in the search result, or only once someone lands on the page?
- Do you report whether AI answers cite us, or only where we rank?
If nobody can answer the first question, that is where your cheapest customers are.
The savage rec
Twenty thousand searches a month worldwide, difficulty in single digits across every variation, advertisers paying their highest prices for proof, and a first-page result with one link and a phone number you cannot tap. This market is easy. It is only embarrassing, and embarrassment keeps competitors away.
You laughed. Someone else added it to their cart.
Tell us which searches your team avoids and we will tell you what that demand is worth and what it would take to win it.