Google to give AOL ads special placement
by Duncan
December 18, 2005
As part of its deal to purchase 5% of AOL, Google has agreed to give
“AOL ads special placement on its site, something it has not done before. Until now, Google prided itself on its auction system for ads, which treated small businesses on an equal footing with its largest customers.” (NY Times).
So let me get this straight: AOL ads will appear above other ads across Adwords/ Adsense, possibly returning a lower amount for bloggers, whilst if your an advertiser, doesn’t matter how much you bid, AOL will be ahead of you.
Anyone for YPN?
Its not as bad as that. If you read the update to the story at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/technology/17aol.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1134840629-zxGButg+araqr4idxCXF6A
It says:
“If a user searches on Google for a topic for which AOL has content – like information about Madonna – there will be a special section on the bottom right corner of the search results page with links to AOL.com. Technically, AOL will pay for those links, which will be identified as advertising, but Google will give AOL credits to pay for them as part of the deal. They will also carry AOL’s logo, the first time Google has agreed to place graphic ads on its search result pages.”
So publishers don’t have to worry about special treatment AOL ads showing up on their websites.