Google Ignoring Its Own Policy on Desktop AdSense?

It has been discovered that Google is now showing AdSense ads inside Google Earth. While it is not that surprising to see Google putting ads on another one of its properties, it has raised a few eyebrows, given that Google Earth is a desktop application.

Google actually states in its policy that it doesn't allow developers to use AdSense ads in their desktop apps, but it appears that Google is bending the rules for its own product. The company is certainly free to do so, given that it owns the product, but some are beginning to wonder if this could lead to Google changing that policy.

Currently that section of Google's policy reads:

"Currently, we don't permit Google ads or AdSense for search boxes to be distributed through software applications including, but not limited to toolbars, browser extensions, and desktop applications. In order to comply with AdSense program policies, please note that Google AdSense code may only be implemented on web-based pages."

Blogger Amit Agarwal at Digital Inspiration appears to be the first to point out the ads in Google Earth, and he provides a couple of screenshots here. In one, you can see AdSense ads when you search for a location or business, and the ads can be found in the search results. In the other screenshot, you can see the ad in the window that pops up when you click a placemark (the red pins on the maps).

The interesting part of this find is not so much that Google is placing ads in Google Earth, but what it could mean if the company were to in fact change its policy.

"If that policy changes, we could see more and more of Office 2010 Starter or FeedDemon like applications that are completely free to the end-user but supported by web advertising," says Agarwal.

Joseph Tartakoff at PaidContent adds that "arch rival" Microsoft has already promised to introduce the ad-supported version of Office to come pre-loaded on PCs.

It is possible that there is being too much read into Google's decision to include AdSense ads in Google Earth. It does make for an interesting conversation though. What do you think?


Have You Read This?

> Google Familiarizes AdWords Users with New Interface

> Blogger Gets AdSense For Feeds Integration

> Google Friend Connect Gets an AdSense Feature

 

Google Adds “Real-Time” Suggestions to Google News

Google has added its Google Suggest feature to Google News in its English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish versions. Now when you go to search for something on Google News, Google will attempt to guess what you may be searching for.

"The feature can make your experience searching Google News better by helping you formulate queries, saving you keystrokes, correcting spelling mistakes and exposing you to queries you might not have thought of," says Google. "The goal of all that? To get you to the articles you're looking for as quickly as possible."

Google brought Google Suggest to Google.com last year. Earlier this year in went worldwide. Google even began placing ads within the suggestions. This was one feature introduced a few months ago along with some navigational suggestions, personalized suggestions, and suggestions on results pages.

It is unclear how many of these features will be present in the Google News version of Google Suggest, but it is interesting that Google refers to these suggestions as being "real time." This is not exactly the real-time search that we are familiar with, as those offered by Twitter, Facebook, and others, but the Google News suggestions seem to indicate that they are reflections of timely news searches.

It does a reasonably good job at this. When starting to type a query for "Ted," I was expecting Ted Kennedy to come up first (ideally), but Teddy Bruschi came up first, and since he just announced his retirement, it appears to have exceeded my expectations in that regard.Typing "Sk" at the moment brings up "Skype" as the first result. The eBay-Skype deal was just announced, so it seems to be working pretty well. 

Make Sense of Google AdSense – and make money!

As a successful web publisher looking to get to the next level, you are probably thinking about trying a number of different approaches to increasing revenue – especially your passive revenue, the money that just “shows up” from time to time while you focus on other things. You may be considering various forms of internet advertising. And you should.
Internet advertising has exceeded all expectations. The technology keeps advancing, and the popularity and ubiquity of the medium is incredible. Most companies can benefit from the Internet because it allows the chance to reach a global audience at never-before-possible speeds, with many kinds of filters to make sure the right audience sees the right message, and costs that are often surprisingly low. But many businesses make money online in ways that have very little to do with their own actual business, but with systems that connect various companies and offerings together.
You may be wondering how to make money easily with online advertising, and you have come to the right place!
The secret is that taking ads is a much more profitable strategy then placing ads for most websites. And the best way to make money with this right now is “hiding in plain sight” from the world’s most popular search engine company.
While there are many ways to approach online advertising, it makes sense the best would be offered by the ultimate search engine company, the company that is setting out to organize all of humanity’s vast amounts of information – Google. This method is Google Ad Words, and it’s sister program, Google AdSense. With Ad Words, Google makes a lot of money. With AdSense, web publishers – that’s you! – can reach a lot of people and make a lot of money too!
Discover How to Turn Your Web Site’s Content Into Cash!
Want to make five or ten or twenty thousand dollars a month automatically and be paid by one of the biggest Internet companies in the world?
We’ll describe what AdSense is, how it works, how to get started, how to maximize the program, and where to go from here! Ready?
First let’s examine what AdSense is and how it works.

Increasing Sales Through Strategic Internet Marketing

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements. Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users? Here are a few tips.

1. Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers. Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website’s search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it. External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site. This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site. Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2. Placing ads on some sites cost some money. However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site. This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking. This is similar to making a statement that your site’s content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3. Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked. If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses. There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4. Choose your domain name wisely. It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5. Make sure you have useful content on your sites. While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer’s confidence in your site. It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines. So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6. When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site? Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7. Track your ads. Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC. There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales. You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits. It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications. Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords. While this is true, this doesn’t mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors’ websites when presenting search engine results. Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.

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