After colonising cyberspace Google is now moving headlong into the newspaper business. The leading search engine is currently in discussions with several newspaper publishers to sell space in their pages to its online clients.
Google Print Ads is an extension of Google AdWords, the auction system that lets companies bid for a slot that appears alongside specific online word searches. Instead of an auction, advertisers pick a newspaper online through Google and enter a bid for available advertising space on a given page and day.
Rather than offering to pay the list price, customers say what they are prepared to pay. Publishers can chosse to accept or decline the offer. Google takes a slice of the advertising revenue from every completed deal. Google even offers to design the ad if the advertiser does not have the capability to do it alone.
Google’s UK advertising revenue rose roughly 40% to about £1.25 billion this current year (2007), comfortably overtaking the publisher Trinity Mirror’s income. Google has already overtaken Channel 4 and beaten ITV1 in the third quarter. Google commands around 75% of the market for search advertising in the UK.
