Google Tests Video Ads On Search Results Pages

Back to front page »

By Saul Hansell

Google has always had a love-hate relationship with advertising. Its power and wealth come from the $16 billion a year of advertising that it sells. Yet on its most important pages, the results from its Web search engine, it has limited ads to nothing more garish than a dozen words of text.

That is about to change. On Thursday, Google started testing video ads on some pages of search results. And it is developing ad formats with images, interactive maps and other more elaborate features.

Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search products and user experience, said in an interview that the change reflects the evolution of the once-sparse Google pages. Last year Google introduced what it calls universal search, which mixes images, videos, news stories and other types of information with the standard text links to Web pages.

“The big insight of Google wasn’t text ads; it was that the ads should be conducive to the format,” Ms. Mayer said. “We were doing text-based search that was all textual. Visual ads don’t work in that format.”

By contrast, she said text ads are not as effective on pages with search results that include images and video. The eyes of users automatically gravitate to the images more than the text, she said. Now that Google’s main search results pages include more images, video links and other elements, it is more appropriate, she argued, to have corresponding advertising formats.

“With universal search, something is getting shaken up a bit on the bottom part of the page,” she said. “The ads on the top part of the page should match.”

At first, users will barely notice the change because the videos will not be immediately obvious. Ads with accompanying videos will have a small button with a plus sign. Google has increasingly used the plus icon to indicate that certain information †like a map †can pop up on a search results page. Users that click the plus button on an ad will see a small video player that shows a commercial, movie trailer or other clip.

Ms. Mayer said, however, that the company would explore adding small thumbnail photos to the video ads as well. And a spokesman said the company is considering testing other formats that may include ads with images. But it is taking a delicate approach.

“We don’t want all sorts of video and banner ads all over the site all the time,” Ms. Mayer said. “People who advertise a movie want to show a trailer. Why shouldn’t they have the same format we use for search results and have a little plus box that says watch the trailer?”

For now, advertisers will not pay extra to put video in the ads. They enter a price they will pay for a click in Google’s regular text-ad auction. But in the video ads, the advertiser pays when users click to see the video, even if they never click through to the advertiser’s site.

This allows Google to expand what it can offer advertisers that are focused on promoting their brands, rather than driving traffic to a Web site. But Ms. Mayer said the company was not changing its idea that ads need to be directly relevant to what users are searching for.

“If you search for golf clubs, you get ads for golf clubs, not a banner ad about Pepsi that you may drink on the golf course,” Ms. Mayer said.

As always on Google, ads are shown based on a combination of factors, including the amount bid and how often they are clicked on.

Google, which owns YouTube, the largest user-contributed video site on the Web, has been exploring a wide range of ways to put video ads online. It started selling video ads that could appear on other Web sites two years ago.

The test is scheduled to begin today in a small fraction of Google searches. Google would not provide an image of what they look like. If you see one, grab an image and send it in to bitsfeedback (at) nytimes.com.

The day Google launches this is the day I stop using Google. It is the duty of every American to avoid as much advertising as possible so that our economy has something to do.

†Posted by Walter

Sergey/Brin, whatever happened to the “dont be evil” thing? seriously i ll switch.. i dont want my results to be cluttered with absurd graphic things.. i just hate it.

†Posted by COP

Just use Firefox with the CustomizeGoogle add-on, and you’ll never see a Google ad again. If enough people do it, maybe we can reduce the oversize role of advertising in our society. And, if not, at least you won’t see ads yourself.

†Posted by AntiAds

This is the last straw. I’ll never use Google again and their servers are going in my hosts file. Oh, for the days when they swore that they would NEVER be anything other than a Web search engine…

†Posted by Joe Dixon

“The big insight of Google wasn’t text ads.” Really? That’s one of the top reasons I love Google - non-intrusive text-only ads. I might be able to bear a tiny plus sign, but the day I see an image or some clown dancing video, I’m going to throw a fit.

†Posted by Eric

Has anyone stopped to say, hey, do we really have the bandwidth for all this advertising? I think the internet, a research apparatus in the first place, should be reserved primarily for public research and not advertising.

†Posted by N0574

If it’s done carefully & leaves the user in control it could be ok It’s possible to do non-intrusive video ads as long as they don’t autoplay, don’t take up too much of the screen and are clear as to what they are Here’s hoping it isn’t too bad, anyhow - imma

†Posted by imma

Time to give ask.com or an obscure service a try. I already use adblock, don’t have cable TV, and don’t listen to commercial radio. Garish, flashing advertising is evil. Our society is sliding not because we aren’t spending enough, as the president says, but because we are spending too much. Shame, Google, shame!

†Posted by Rick Roberts

The day you pay for your search results is the day they will stop advertising.

†Posted by RC

In summation…more ways to take advertisers dollars that in the end really wont amount to anything? especially if it does not even go through to a landing page? What are they thinking with this one?

†Posted by Buffalo NY

Has anybody seen one of these ads yet? If so, please post the URL to this page.

†Posted by Michael

Google’s main mission is to organize the world’s information and presenting it to us in a highly usable format. They have to earn a return on their investment so I do not mind them expanding their advertizing/display format to achieve the return, as long as it is not obtrusive and a clutter. I am confident Google realizes this and will achieve its goals, including maximizing its return, in a tasteful way. They are miles ahead of anyone else in achieving their misson and it is a joy to use their services.

†Posted by steve altneu

I love Walter’s comment, “The day Google launches this is the day I stop using Google.”

Haha…you’ll boycott for 48 hours, then realize you can’t get the information you need anywhere else. Google provides a service vital to most people’s online lives, and viewing ads during this process is a small price to pay.

†Posted by David

I am old enough to remember the initial days of Internet. In the beginning there were purists that were fighting to assure that the Internet would never be allowed to commercial use. Fact is, if Google bring to life a good product, they will prevail. If not, the market itself would take care of them. Is that simple.

†Posted by Celso Skrabe

If Google tomorrow offered a “commercial-free” service of all their entire host of services for even $1, and promise that those who pay this $1 per month would never see a single ad on any of Google’s services, these same folks who bitch “ad”-infinitum about advertising being evil, would still continue to bitch about Google, about their “audacity” to charge a dollar for their services.

These good-for-nothing tire-kickers want everything for free, no commercials, no payments, open source, and with no terms of service or interruption of service.

Basically, they don’t want anyone to make money on anything, and everything should be free.

Get real and get a life, folks.

- Ravi Jayagopal

†Posted by RavisRants.com

As long as we are receiving free search results, I am ok with an ad that’s not intrusive. If you don’t want any Google ads, write them a check each month for using their search engine. If people don’t want commercial radio, they PAY for satellite radio. If people don’t want commercial TV, they PAY for DVDs of a season series. Put it this way, would you rather see advertisments or have to pay for each and every media that you absorb in a day? They day a viewer has to enter a credit card to watch an episode of LOST or an NFL game on a network or use a search engine is the day that no one wants to see.

†Posted by SR

It’s interesting to see Google validating the promise of video advertising online as well as the viewer comments to this article. For the past couple of years, a group of us, at a company called Mixpo, have been developing a solution that helps small and medium sized businesses leverage online video. Our approach is to create a way for businesses to leverage video online to better inform, engage, and interact with potential customers, rather than create another way to annoy and pester viewers - like the majority of banner ads do.

Advertising, at its core, is meant to inform potential customers. It’s time to start thinking about how online video can deliver more, BOTH for businesses (that need to advertise to grow) and consumers (who want to be informed and respected).

†Posted by Glenn

How do you people expect to get all these great online tools if there isn’t money to pay for them?

Right on Ravi!

†Posted by GC

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

All NYTimes.com Blogs »

Apple added two new products to its line both at $499. This sets the stage for the price cuts later this year.

A look at the key assets that will have to be combined.

The bottom line: Yahoo will get sold to Microsoft.

The stock market may be fretting over Google’s disappointing earnings, but somewhere Rupert Murdoch is smiling.

Amazon’s S3 Cloud Has a Dark Lining for Startups

Amazon’s S3 online storage service was down for several hours, taking startups and other customers out with it.

Will Toshiba Suspend Its HD DVD Campaign?

Toshiba still says it will fight on in the high definition disc race. But campaign sources tell the Hollywood Reporter that it is preparing to accept that HD DVD simply can’t win. UPDATE: Wal-Mart is backing Blu-ray. This race is over.

Will Microsoft’s Executive Shuffle Scare Yahoo?

Microsoft’s new reorganization splits responsibility for its online offerings between four executives, most of whom also are responsible for parts of the Windows operating system. That resembles the complex organization at Yahoo, which bred the infighting and paralysis, that many Yahoo employees blame for its ills.

Silicon Valley Executive Sticks Up for His Hillary Video

“I do agree that some of the Obama videos are better,” Gene Wang says. “But we have the better candidate by far.”

A Farewell Note From a Departing Yahoo

Bradley Horowitz, a Yahoo vice president who left this week for Google, pens a loving note to his troubled ex-employer.

Bits offers news and analysis on the technology industry throughout the day with posts about the inventors and dealmakers trying to master and profit from the digital age. We cover start-ups, giant enterprises, government policies and the way technology is used around the world.

Tell us what you like, dont like and want to read more about.

Send us e-mail with your comments

For news tips and press announcements, please use the e-mail links on the blog home page to reach our writers and editors. Companies Amazon Apple eBay Facebook Google Microsoft MySpace Yahoo Topics Consumer Electronics Hardware Innovations and Ideas Internet Music and Video Nanotechnology Online Marketing People Policy and Law Silicon Valley Software Technology and Society Telecommunications Venture Capital and Finance   Home World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Autos Back to Top Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map var gtrackevents=false; var gdcsid="dcs591klg00000c97pblfraeo_7p3p"; var gfpcdom=".nytimes.com"; var gdomain="wt.o.nytimes.com";

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?