Google Gets Lion's Share of Blog Ad Booty

Posted on October 21, 2005

Many bloggers run Google AdSense ads on their blogs. In the meantime Google's bringing in massive revenues with Adsense. They generated $675 million in the 3rd quarter just from AdSense. The Red Herring is reporting that most of the blog advertising money made so far is going to Google.

Blogs will play an important role in the future of advertising, entrepreneurs said Tuesday, but for now the bulk of ad dollars from these web journals still appears to be flowing to search engine Google.
Venture capitalists and Internet executives gathered at the ThinkEquity technology and investor conference in Half Moon Bay, California, are looking for ways to make money on the trend of consumer-created content such as blogs. Blog web traffic was up 31 percent through the first seven months of 2005, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, and hasn't shown any signs of slowing.
Much of the money to be made now seems to be flowing into the coffers of Google. The company's context-based advertising scheme makes it easy for bloggers to quickly record advertising revenue.

Google AdSense is very popular with bloggers but Google's blog advertising reign is not guaranteed. Bloggers also use other advertising vehicles like BlogAds and Adbrite. Contextual advertising programs similar to Google's are being tested by both Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo's is called the Yahoo Publisher Network. Microsoft has launched the MSN AdCenter which is still accepting applications for beta testers according to Jensense.

A recent blog advertising program called Chitika has been promoted by bloggers but many of the bloggers doing the promoting are using referral links so they can earn referral commissions. Some bloggers disclose this but others do not.

How does Chitika's Publisher Referral Program work?
When the publisher you refer applies for eMiniMalls through your referral link, is approved, and then displays Chitika's eMiniMalls on their website, you are eligible to receive Publisher referral commissions. You will earn 10% of the CPC revenue that your referrals earns for up to 12 months from their approval date.

It will be interesting to see if Google's blog advertising dominance continues. They have a big head start over the competition.