stoxup

"We've argued that a full load of display ads on Google.com could add $3-$4 billion in annual revenue. Many SAI readers considered this estimate too optimistic, and it might be, at least over the next couple of years. But $1-$2 billion seems easily achievable.

...

It will start small -- placing display ads on, for example, image search results. But we imagine that display ads will gradually spread throughout Google.com over the next few years."

Google Confirms Plans to Put Display Ads on Google.com: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

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Davros

Would it really make any sense putting ads on the front page though?

I thought the Google boys wanted to keep the front page "clean"?

Raize

Knowing google they will do it with style...they won't be the typical banner ads we see on most other sites. They'll be smarter, and maybe even have textual ads embedded within the banners...actually that makes sense. Taking contextual advertising to a graphical level.

If I remember correctly, google adsense rules prevent you from placing images beside adsense boxes...but it works, and I guess now they'll be able capitalize on that.

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Drake

How in the hell do you do real contextual ads on the root page? I mean what is the context? Everyone goes there and if they are not signed in, how do you know anything about them?

Prepare to see ringtone and electronics ads 24/7.

And do you think they will let people opt out of that index.html spot? I know the conversions will suck and the cost will be high. I bet we will have to bitch for 6 months to be able to opt out of that.

Raize

Well, geographically at least...and maybe based on past search history? Dunno really didn't think about that part.

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However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill

Stanley

I don't think they're putting ads on Google.com root page, I think it's just a very badly written article.

If you read it carefully you'll notice no mention of the root Google page, and the Google rep they're quoting makes no mention of it either. Instead she's talking about image search results, and the author of the article is probably referring to placement of ads on other Google products that don't currently have ads on them.

Basically I think that title is just link bait.

Raize

That makes a lot more sense lol

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However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. Winston Churchill

charliejones

Looks like Google would like to give a more fancy look for their front page. if all goes well this could well be another one of those Google success stories..

Jon

It's going to happen one day. May as well be sooner than later. Not that the shareholders are complaining, but if there is something that Google can do on their side to boost revenues by making minor changes, so be it, they'll do it.

Google is not the tech favorite/friendly engine that it once was. They are corporate America's poster boys. Making the front of the site to be more content and advertising saturated, or congested like Yahoo and MSN have done for a decade is probably going to be happening over at Google.

Will be interesting to see how the stock trades for the short term investors during the first week it goes live. Remember that most of Wall St and the rest of the world see images and content packing on a site as a GOOD thing, whereas industries like ours or developers see it in an opposite and rude/ugly perspective. Meaning, it should have a VERY positive effect on that stock price climbing, rather than anything we'd normally predict.

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mubin

This is the reason google is paying for all these damn toolbar installs and pumping money into firefox. they want to deliver contexual ads to the front page. The only way to do that is with your search history. I see this as being the downturn of GooGle, it wont be a quick demise, but if this is what the future is I am sure that someone else is going to take over. MSN, and Yahoo are annoying because of all that damn information that they display for no particular reason.

As Jon states GooGle is no longer a company being run by 2 guys trying to "not be evil". It is a multi-billion dollar organisation that not only has to answer to shareholders but also to stakeholders. Shareholders want to see more and more growth for a market that gooGle has already been dominating for the past 10 years. The only way forward is either innovation or throwing even more ads in our face.

HarveyJ

Whilst it's a bit removed from the OP, what do people suggest as an alternative to google as the "smart person's" search?

I mean, google still has the algorithms behind it that make it far more useful than any other search engine I can think of (even more than Dogpile! )

Not to mention, it's the main means by which the majority of people here are generating their revenues.

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onlinemarketer7

Now I know, Google seems to be more on business that makes more sense.