Google Plans Graphic Ads on Search Results

Google's pending deal to buy a stake in AOL has apparently prompted the search engine company to accelerate plans to place graphical ads on its famously spartan search results pages

Online search colossus Google is reportedly accelerating plans to include graphical advertisements on its famously text-only search results pages, spurred in part by its negotiations to buy a 5 percent stake in America Online (announcement expected any minute now).

According to stories in the New York Times and Financial Times, in addition to an estimated $1 billion purchase price for a stake in AOL, Google will provide AOL with $300 million in advertising credit on Google’s Web sites. AOL will have to bid on placement just like any other advertiser, but the AOL deal will spur the availability of a new, graphical ad format to appear in the sponsored links appearing on Google search results pages.

Google and AOL are also exploring graphical possibilities for Google’s One Box, an area above search results featuring links to specific related sites and services, including Google services like flight tracking and music purchases, and advertising from Google’s ad partners. AOL-laden possibilities for the One Box include celebrity-related features and other links to AOL content, such as video and music offerings.

Google will have to manage the partnership carefully: including any graphics at all in search results listing may alienate some Google faithful, who appreciated the company’s “do no evil” stance when interpreted to mean fast-loading pages and the absence of flashing, garish graphics. Google will also have to avoid the appearance of playing favorites with AOL content: for years, the search company has insisted it doesn’t favor one content provider over another : now, it’s on the verge of entering in a content-sharing relationship with AOL and giving AOL a free $300 million leg up towards making AOL content visible via Google.

Graphical ads in search results listings would not mark the first time Google has enabled advertisers to place graphic advertisements. Google’s Image Search and Froogle shopping features, already graphically-intensive, have carried graphical ads for some time.