Google To Add Advertising to Google News?
One of the last AdWords untouched major sections of Google is Google News. Although Google News is possibly the fastest growing and one of the most popular destinations within Google, Google has yet to tap its revenue generation potential (unless some of the rumors are true that sites serving AdSense get more play in the Google News front page & categorical listings, a rumor I’ve heard but have never agreed with). Ben at Search Engine Roundtable thinks that the time is coming for Google News monetization and that Google may be offering something a bit different than normal AdWords.
Imagine what type of monetization potential this untapped resource has currently. According to some offical sources News is the second fastest growing segment for Google and Yahoo this year. 41% of Google users are looking for news. Not natural search, but news search. So it seems logical to eventually harness the potential and milk it for profit.
When will we see ads in our Google News section? No one know for sure, but my guess is potentially sometime in late 2006 or 2007. They are also testing various ad placements internally. Taking a look at the Google News homepage, I am not sure where they would place ads as anything inserted would seem out of place. Guess we will see. If you know anything about this speculation, please comment here?
I would not be too happy to see normal AdWords ads shown in the Google News search results, and neither would most advertisers since a search for news and for websites brings a whole different kind of searcher with a whole different mindset. But what if Google launched a version of AdWords where news sites could buy placement for certain terms or local regions, where the click thru would direct users to news stories, like Topix.net offers. Now that is something which may work.
