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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,,, by Anarchy_Creator on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 10:27am
I sure hope google doesn't sell out...
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Re: ,,, by Sv on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 10:29am
It was predicted this will happen:
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2004/10/googles-image-ads-success.html
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Re: ,,, by Matt on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 10:33am
'course they did. It's called an IPO.
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Time for a new upstart .. by MissingFrame on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 10:34am
Sounds like some small upstart company should concentrate on a new simple and fast search engine without all the bells and whistles ... oh ... wait ...
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It's business... by P.Logo on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 11:12am
...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.
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No Subject Given by Anonymous Coward on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 11:59am
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.
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The Give-Away May Generate The Billion by Jimmy on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 1:57pm
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.
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Re: The Give-Away May Generate The Billion by PUzzled dude on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 4:22pm
What are you talking about? This post makes absolutely no sense.
"...the bidding tide will raise all boats?"
What a moronic comment.
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Re: The Give-Away May Generate The Billion by Anonymous Coward on Dec 20th, 2005 @ 5:08pm
"...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."
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by freak3dot on Apr 2nd, 2007 @ 12:37pm
"...the bidding tide will raise all boats?"
If AOL bids higher, then everyone else will bid higher.
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