How AOL Convinced Google To Loosen Up A Bit On Ads

from the money,-money,-money,-money dept

For years and years, it was part of Google lore how the text ads they showed made much more sense than image ads. The text ads loaded quickly, and fit better with the fact that people were searching for information. It began to seem like image ads were "evil" in the world of Google. A year and a half ago, the company decided image ads were okay to sell for other sites, but that the search results would remain purely text. That's why it caught a lot of attention when rumors started flying that part of the Google-AOL deal was that AOL could place image ads on search results. However, as with anything, it pays to wait for the details. Apparently, while AOL did force this move, it was something Google was already planning to do at some point. It also sounds like the early experiments will be fairly limited. While (on top of the $1 billion Google is handing over) Google is giving AOL $300 million worth of free ads, AOL will still need to bid competitively on those ads -- and, at least early on, it sounds like the image ads will still be quite understated. More traditional banners might be shown on Google's image search or the Froogle shopping search -- since those are already image heavy. While it may get a lot of people talking, it's unlikely that too many people will actually care that much. For those who really do get upset about this, they'll quickly block out the ads using an adblock tool or some sort of ad-free proxy of Google. At this point, it's not like people have a better ad-free place to go anyway.
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  • identicon
    Anarchy_Creator, 20 Dec 2005 @ 10:27am

    ,,,

    I sure hope google doesn't sell out...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    MissingFrame, 20 Dec 2005 @ 10:34am

    Time for a new upstart ..

    Sounds like some small upstart company should concentrate on a new simple and fast search engine without all the bells and whistles ... oh ... wait ...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    P.Logo, 20 Dec 2005 @ 11:12am

    It's business...

    ...and it probably makes sense from a business point of view. People are not going to switch search engines just because of this. Those with some tech saavy will undoubtedly just get a browser extension that filters out the entire ad column. It's unfortunate that until the graphic ads, I wouldn't have bothered to get an ad blocking extension, but now I will. Also unfortunately, this solution will not change the fact that the page speed will still be slowed.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2005 @ 11:59am

    No Subject Given

    People will switch. I don't find Google results to be particularly better than any other search engine... years ago they were, but other sites have stepped up and slimmed down... they are all pretty interchangeable.

    Now, the only reason I continue using Google is that there was no reason to change. Those other search engines didn't offer anything better than Google.

    But they can, now.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jimmy, 20 Dec 2005 @ 1:57pm

    The Give-Away May Generate The Billion

    I'm going to step out on a limb here. If someone wants to cut the branch, so be it.

    From what I have observed of the Google bidding process, the $300MM in free advertising to AOL may generate a nice multiple of that in additional revenue. AOL may bid hard-n-heavy with this "free money." As AOL outbids others for keywords, the bidding tide will raise all boats.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      PUzzled dude, 20 Dec 2005 @ 4:22pm

      Re: The Give-Away May Generate The Billion

      What are you talking about? This post makes absolutely no sense.

      "...the bidding tide will raise all boats?"

      What a moronic comment.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2005 @ 5:08pm

        Re: The Give-Away May Generate The Billion

        "...the bidding tide will raise all boats?" "If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominos will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate."

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    freak3dot, 2 Apr 2007 @ 12:37pm

    "...the bidding tide will raise all boats?"

    If AOL bids higher, then everyone else will bid higher.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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