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09/20/2001 Archived Entry: "20-September-2001 -- Why They're Agog over Google"

Why They're Agog over Google (Business Week) -- "Unlike portals such as Yahoo! Inc. and CNET, Google has seen online ad sales rise in recent quarters. The reason? The ads on Google's site are delivered as a text listing above the search results--making them appear more a part of the page's content." (Comments: I think the text ads look like ads, not search results. That's good. However, some people claim that the text ads look like search results, not ads. That's bad. Either way, I don't mind. I want Google to make money. I want them to survive.)

Replies: 1 comment

the reason given by BW to the "adwords" success is not the good one, in my opinion.

It's not because ads looks like a part of the page. The ads are clearly different from the rest of the page and are clearly designed as ads.

It's because text is a much more efficient vehicle for info than animated gifs, especially in a cognitive process as web browsing. If ad's text is well designed, ad becomes information and drives mouse clicks.

the best proof of it is that effective clickthrough rate may vary in huge proportions, depending at the wording of the ad (see a recent J.Nielsen - www.useit.com - article about it). On the web, words make people click more than images.

Vincent Benard,
www.veblog.com
from paris, fr. (sorry for poor english)

Posted by vincent benard @ 09/21/2001 08:46 AM EST

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