Google likes banner ads?

• May. 14, 2004

I thought we’d seen the death of banner ads.  In my opinion there was so much negative feedback from web users that I thought for sure that the whole banner ad issue was as dead as popup ads.  Of course they still appeared from time to time on some engines and portals but they have been less visible as of late. 

 

Earlier this year MSN UK went so far as to ban banner ads on their site, while Ask Jeeves made a very public announcement that they would be banning banner ads as well.

 

As of late, however, they seem to have come back in favor with the major search engines.  Yahoo and Enhance recently signed a deal to display Enhance banner ads on the Yahoo portal pages (i.e. health.yahoo.com), and just this week Google has announced that they will integrate a banner ad program into their AdWords program.

 

While these ads won’t be displayed on Google, they will be offered to advertising partners as a way to boost revenues.

 

This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to many – the fact that banners are making a comeback – but it is surprising that Google is willing to get into the mix.  Until you consider the revenue potential for such ads.  While the click through rate lands somewhere around a half percent, for banner ads, Google claims that these are not “traditional” banner ads.  They are considered image ads.

 

So what’s the difference?

 

Well for one, they don’t always get picked to be displayed.   When it is determined which ads get displayed – image or text – the relevance to the page content is what decides.  So if a text ad is more relevant to the content on an AdSense partner site, the text ad will be displayed, while if the image ad is more relevant then the image ad will be displayed.

 

Everything with Google’s new program still hinges on relevancy. 

 

Also, the images on the ad must be relevant to the ad content.  If your ad is about roses and carnations, the image must flower themed.  Also, the ad will only appear on pages to which it is related.  In other words, if your image ad is about flowers, don’t expect to see it on a page discussing the latest operating system.

 

One final note, Google’s AdWords FAQ says that “At this time, we won't show image ads on Google.”  It is interesting that they put it this way. This leaves the doors open for banner ads on Google.

 

Rob Sullivan

Production Manager

Searchengineposition.com

Enquiro.com