AdSense

The march of the ads from the PC to the smartphone took another step Monday with the launch of Google AdSense for high-end phones.

Web publishers can now design AdSense ads--groups of Google AdWords text ads displayed by third-party publishers on their Web sites--with the HTML browsers used by smartphones in mind, Google announced Monday in a blog post. Advertisers had been able to run smaller mobile ads that older mobile phone browsers could handle, but they'll now have an option of showing a more sophisticated ad on a more sophisticated browser like those used by the iPhone, the … Read more

Android and iPhone developers looking for an extra source of revenue will soon have an advertising option, sponsored by Google.

Google's AdSense program--in which it sells and distributes ads to third-party publishers--is coming to mobile devices as a beta program, the company announced Wednesday. A small group of developers have been testing this program but now anyone can apply, said Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management, in a blog post.

Mobile apps are one of the hottest topics in software development these days, as Apple's App Store continues to grow and other developers roll out their … Read more

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Are the days of silly AdSense deals with the likes of MySpace and AOL over for Google? Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay seems to think so. The analyst upped his price target to $600 for Google shares on the theory that the economy is rebounding and the search giant's revenue per click ratio will follow. Meanwhile, Google's profit margins are likely to go higher.

And Google's ability to walk away from high-cost AdSense deals are one reason those margins are headed higher. Lindsay writes in a research note: … Read more

Microsoft on Wednesday opened its PubCenter advertising service up for public beta testing, providing more of an alternative to Google's AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network technology that places ads on publishers' sites.

All the services scrutinize the content on a Web site and place advertisements the service deems to be relevant to that content. As with ads on search sites, the advertiser pays only when a reader clicks on one of the ads, and revenue is shared with the publisher and the company operating the ad service.

Kevin McCabe, senior product manager of PubCenter, announced the move at the … Read more

People are constantly registering new Internet domains, and Google is trying to ensure a good chance its online services show up on the pristine Web real estate.

The company on Wednesday announced a collection called Google Services for Websites that people can put on their brand-new Internet domains even if they don't have lots of technical expertise.

The services let Web site operators add Google ads and two Google search tools, Site Search and Custom Search, using a control panel that Web-hosting companies can offer. The ads come through AdSense, which scans text on the Web site and presents … Read more

Google is joining a $5.75 million investment round in Pixazza, a start-up that hopes to profit by overlaying photos on the Web with links that let people buy the products in the images.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is now launching the technology for general use by advertisers, Web publishers, and the network of self-appointed but screened specialists who identify the products in the photos, said Chief Executive Bob Lisbonne. The company is starting with the apparel industry but plans to expand to home design and furnishings, travel, electronics, and sports starting later this year, he said.

Lisbonne … Read more

Google is expanding its AdSense program--literally.

The Web search giant announced Wednesday in a blog post that it is pitching advertisers on the use of expandable ad units, those adverts that start out as banners or square ads and launch larger ads that cover much of the Web site's content. However, Google says that unlike the most annoying variety, these expandable ads won't enlarge on their own or with a simple mouse-over; users will have to click on the smaller ad to get the larger ad.

Many users may find expandable ads annoying, but as Google points out, … Read more

Google announced Friday that AdSense users will now be able to change the font face of the text in its ad units. According to the company's AdSense engineers, users will be able to choose between Arial, Times, and Verdana in their ads, but they will only be applied to units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters.

To customize the ad units, AdSense users will need to visit the "Ad Display Preference" section in their Account settings and select the custom font they want to use for their ad. Once they pick that font, they can update their … Read more

Continuing its effort to stake out turf in a fast-growing area, Google on Tuesday announced the ability of mobile phones to show Google-supplied advertisements through a program called AdSense for mobile search.

Google sells ads next to its own search results through a service called AdWords, but the newer development involves a separate service called AdSense that lets publishers show Google-administered ads on their own sites. Google launched AdSense for mobile phones in 2007, but now it's seeking testers for a hybrid offering that involves others using Google's own search engine.

With it, mobile phone makers or mobile … Read more