Google to Distribute Image Ads, Plans Email List Service

comforteagle writes "For the next shot in the search engine advertising war Google has launched image ads in addition to their popular text AdSense program. From Google's explanation page: 'Image ads will show in rotation with text ads. On a page by page basis, Google's technology determines whether text ads or image ads are likely to make you more money, and serves the best ads to your page.'" Another reader writes: "eWEEK.com is reporting that Google has begun testing a new mailing list service, Google Groups 2, sure to go head-to-head with Yahoo Groups. It eventually will replace what is today only a Usenet archive. Users of the new beta can start their own mailing lists (public or private) and in typical Google fashion, it is promising to put search front and center (even hinting at postings being included in Web search one day)."

Good

[Elvisisdead]

Now I'll get more usage from Firebird's "block images from..." feature.

Well

[krymsin01]

At least they are giving you the option of NOT having the graphic ads placed on your site. I'm sure a lot of people just like the elegance of the text based ads a lot more since they are less obtrusive. However, how long do you think it will take them to not give you the option of not displaying banner ads? I'm sure they are going to be charging more for the graphics since they'll be using more bandwidth.

Re:Here we go again?

[krymsin01]

Google is not placing the ads on THEIR page, only on sites that use the AdSense service.

Not on the main Google site, though ...

[SimplyCosmic]

I worry that a number of people are going to only read the summary listed above and not realize that this if for their "Adsense" program which allows you to place Google ads on your website. Nothing has been said about putting image ads on Google's own search engine site.

Re:End of Google as we know it?

[Peyna]

RTFA, it has nothing to do with their search page and the ads that are displayed there.

AdSense is a service that Google provides to web publishers; basically they let other people use Google's advertising technology on their web site. There is no mention anywhere that Google itself will be using images in the ads on their search page.

Re:Good

[zonem]

After reading this post, I searched for a couple of Firefox plugins, one of which is called Adblock [mozdev.org]. It is extremely useful. Why isn't this plugin integrated into the default install of Firefox? It should be a base feature of any real web browser.

Adblock is extremely convenient to use. Just click on the Adblock button on the status bar and a window pops up allowing you to select image URLs within the current page to block, allowing wildcards. As you scroll through images, it highlights the image you've selected on the webpage for convenience.

Re:Ok...

[birder]

My add blocking software stops text adds from google, yahoo, etc.

This is for YOUR webpage, NOT Google's page

[Anonymous Coward]

...for those who didn't read the article, this is for your own webpage and not for Google.

I wish Google would fix the bugs first

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Google would fix the bugs first. Phrase searches frequently turn up bogus results. For example, "to be or not to be" typically turns up from 1 to 3 resulting pages that do not contain the phrase. Right now, there is only one error result.

Before someone posts an incorrect reply:

Google themselves told me this was a bug, and they knew about it snd would fix it some time. However, this was 4 years ago.

A page containing the word "tobornottobe" is NOT a correct match for a search for "to be or not to be".

I did try the quotes around the phrase.

Do not mention "but the pages linking to it contain the phrase!". That is only used for ranking of results, and not for actually finding the results.

Another example is a search on "AB RAIN". One of the first 10 returns is incorrect.

Re:Google Groups

[dema]

It looks like the groups beta still has a usenet listing [google.com]. And I agree with you, those usenet archives have got me out of more than one jam (:

Re:Ok...

[zonix]

Unlike the text ones, they're blockable, too, for those who aren't interested.

If a page serves the texts ads within an IFRAME or a SCRIPT element, you can easily block it with Firefox's AdBlock extension.

(Usually this is the case for ads that a fetched from remote sites.)

z

From the FAQ: Animated images will not be accepted

[cygnusx]

>(please, please, static images only).

What are the image ad requirements? [google.com]

Format: All images you load must be in a .JPEG, .GIF, or .PNG format. Animated images will not be accepted.

Size: You may choose from four standard ad sizes: Banner (468 x 60), Leaderboard (728 x 90), Inline Rectangle (300 x 250), and Skyscraper (120 x 600) (see examples here). Please note that we may resize your image slightly to accommodate your destination URL and the 'Ads by Google' feedback link, which can alter the proportions of your image. If you'd like to retain your image's original proportions, you may adjust your image sizes before you upload them (learn more.)

Image content: Your images must be relevant to your advertised concepts and products. For example, an Ad Group containing keywords like 'roses,' 'tulips,' and 'carnations' would call for floral-related images. We strongly recommend that you also include some descriptive text and a call to action to reinforce your ad's message.

Please note that we will only accept family safe images. For more details about acceptable image ads content, read the Google AdWords Editorial Guidelines.

Re:Ok...

[Chess_the_cat]

Why is this a troll? Ad Muncher 4.5 does this. You can set it to display alternate text or no text at all. I haven't seen a Google text ad in months.

Instructions to get rid of most annoying ads

[SmilingBoy]

Install AdBlock [mozdev.org] on your Mozilla browser.

Save the following in a text file:

[Adblock]
googlesyndication
us.yimg.com/a/
/\/b uy_assets\//
/[\W\d_](top|bottom|left|right|)?ban ner(s|id=|\d|_)[\W\d]/
/[\W\d](double|fast)click[ \W\d]/
/[\W\d]click(stream|thrutraffic|thru|xchan ge)[\W\d]/
/[\W\d]value(stream|xchange|click)[\W\ d]/
/[\W\d]dime(xchange|click)[\W\d]/
/[\W\d](on lineads?|ad(banner|click|-?flow|frame|ima?g(es?)?| _id|js|log|serv(er|e)?|stream|_string|s|trix|type| vertisements?|v|vert|xchange)?)[\W\d]/
/(hot|spy) log/
/[\W_](b(an|nr)s?|jump|redir(ect|s)?|stat)[\ W_]/
/\W(cy|r)?c(ou)?nt(er|ed)?\W/
/p(artner|ing \.cgi|romotion)/
reklama
/sp(onsor|ymagic)/
/to p(100|cto)/

Import the file into your AdBlock: Tools -> AdBlock -> Preferences -> AdBlock Options -> Import Filters

Blocks most annoying ads. The power of regular expressions!

Adblock

[amembleton]

AdBlock [mozdev.org] not only blocks images, but also iFrames. iFrames are used on other people's websites to display Google's adsense text adverts. I assume that this will also show the image based adverts.

You can block the whole iFrame and you can use wildcards so you can do stuff like:
block: *.doubleclick.net/*

Re:Ok...

[Shakrai]

Why is this a troll? Ad Muncher 4.5 does this. You can set it to display alternate text or no text at all. I haven't seen a Google text ad in months.

I'm sorry but do Google text ads bother you that much? I actually find them useful and have wound up buying a few products from them. If you don't like them are they that hard to ignore? I don't recall ever seeing a Google text ad popping up with "Smack the Monkey and win $50!" in a flashing javascript banner that causes epileptic seizures.

I don't see any reason to block Google ads. They are useful and (more to the point) they provide pretty much the sole revenue stream to our favorite company. Why the hell would you block them?

Only on content pages

[IAmTheDave]

Being an AdWords subscriber, I recieved the image AdWords posting email today in my inbox. From the email:

"We're excited to introduce image ads, an additional ad format that combines the appeal of pictures with proven AdWords targeting technology. Now you can show your product images, company branding or other creative elements on relevant content sites throughout the Google Network."

"Content" pages do not include search pages. Content pages are Google advertising subscriber pages like, say... Slashdot.

So don't fret, they won't clutter the Google search engine interface.

Washington Post article with more info

[Isaac-Lew]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A224 35-2004May12.html [washingtonpost.com]

I don't see why people are complaining...the ads aren't going on Google's page, they are small, and they will be relevant to the page content. I don't see what the problem is with Google doing it, if they make a *really* bad move then people will simply stop using it & they'll go under.

Re:Bandwidth concerns for me

[Robmonster]

The FAQ also says that animated images are not allowed.

Re:Adblock

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, internet advertisers have consolidated a lot in the past few years. I can tell you this since I use adblock and I have noticed that once you have about 5 domains wildcarded, you will block 99% of all ads.

*adsdk.com*
*atdmt.com*
*qksrv.net*
*doublecl ick*
*valueclick*

Throw in ads.osdn.com for this site and a few other specialized ones and you're pretty much set. The one domain that is rather annoying is yimg.com (yahoo images) because they use it for both their advertisements and their normal site images and the URLs are sometimes difficult to distinguish.

Re:Headline: Public doesn't RTFA

[saddino]

As others have pointed out, Google is NOT adding image ads to their website [google.com], but rather to third-party sites using their AdSense services.

In short: the reason you moved to Google is still valid.

Re:Adblock

[a whoabot]

To kill most yahoo ads go:

*a*.yimg.*

and

*us.*1.yimg.*

To get rid of more ads, these are good along with the ones you listed:

*fastclick.*
*adbureau.*
*eyeblaster-bs.*
*ad vertising.*
*spinbox.*
*zdmcirc.*
*exchangead.*
*bluestreak.*

Google Groups

[michrech]

While I haven't read every single reply to this article, I do have some problems with Google Groups in it's current incarnation.

Basically, the problem when comparing it to Yahoo!Groups are missing:

1) File storage
2) Photo storage
3) Calendar
4) Database
5) Chat (local to the group)
6) Polls

I know it's still in beta, and will likely have much of this added. But, as I said, right now there is no way Google Groups can be compared to Yahoo!Groups.

For those that care, I did start a Google group (to see what features were available) "justatest" [google.com].

Lets see how many we can get to join it! =] eheheheh..

Re:Is Google killing USENET?

[elb]

They're not replacing the Usenet archive. They're replacing the current service, which is solely a Usenet archive, with the new version, which is both Usenet archive and make-your-own-group.

Re:Fear and loathing.

[persaud]

Look at the new interface [google.com] for searching Usenet.

1. Search by date seems to be gone
2. 'View thread' has been separated into a default nested view and a 'tree' option that is a tree+single-message. Not as usable.
3. Usenet Message-ID [google.com] for addressing has been replaced by X-Google-Thread [google.com]. This is a Walled Garden: it breaks all existing URLs that link to Usenet threads on Google and divorces Usenet GUIDs from Google GUIDs. Likely purpose is unification with Google Email UIDs. Fair enough, but they should still include Usenet Message-ID in the raw source and allow backwards-compatible addressing via Message-ID. There is a 1-1 mapping, so there is no technical reason to destroy all current URLs.

#1 is a big loss of functionality. It must be there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

Risque content for google groups?

[josh drvsh]

Is their policy better than Yahoo?

If Google has a policy concern over a possible or clear violation, will they *not* erase the group outright, as Yahoo does but perhaps notify the moderators to correct the issue, therebye giving the moderators time to save/backup the list if they do have to go somewhere else?

Where are the scripts for pulling the content off Yahoo groups and transferring it to google groups?

pesky google flame

[joshds]

This is *exactly* in response to their users, that is, users of their advertising services.

Furthermore, it's only an option -- and a service offered by all of the other major advertising vendors that they will have to compete more heavily against now that they will be in more public competition with them.

Flaming google for matching service offerings of their competitors, and improving upon them, is an idiotic thing to do. The dozens of replies that are focused on lambasting google and their snide 'well ill just block their image adds with my 3r33t meth0ds' are not new, interesting, or worthwhile discussion.

With google's financials in the open air, they are going to experience a profit crunch as their current customers discover how well they're doing, and as other competitors both adapt and better compete. They'll need to offer the same, if not greater, services in the near future to establish themselves.

The interesting commentary was about how google will run the risk of alienating the average cusumer by infesting the web/newsgroups/news/searchresults/email/etc. with annoying advertising. I think google is aware of this, but we will have to watch and see how they cope with it.

But I also dont think that to the average or majority of internet users, an imagead will now be associated with google -- they're everywhere, and not all nor will they will be all placed by google.

$0.02