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Google Counters AOL Deal Speculation

Posted by Zonk on from the only-time-will-tell dept.

arrrrg writes "Google has responded to speculation of biased search results and flashy banner ads arriving in the wake of their recent $1 Billion deal with AOL. On their official blog, they deny that users will see any negative changes. In particular they maintain that search results will remain unbiased and the site will remain free of banner ads." From the post: "Indexing more of AOL's content. Our goal is to organize all of the world's information. When we say 'all the world's information,' this includes AOL's. We're going to work with the webmasters at AOL -- just as we work with webmasters all over the world -- to help them understand how the Google crawler works (with regard to robots.txt, how to use redirects, non-html content, etc.) so we don't inadvertently overlook their content."

2 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Text ads work by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Interesting

    - There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.

    Will the same be true for all the hundreds of thousands of sites in Google's ad display network?

    Google achieved much through its innovation in text advertising. It proved that relevance is way more effective than blinking and moving graphics.

    But now my local Google rep tells me Google accepts graphical banner content including Macromedia Flash format.

    They're making some sort of guarantees about their own Google web site in TFA, but what about all their affiliate relays? Will Google allow customers to flood those with annoying graphical ads?

  2. Re:Uh? by Will+Fisher · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I read that (and I might be wrong) that Google makes $400 Million in ad revenue from AOL subscribers (who, presumably, arrive at google from AOL). If microsoft had bought this steak in AOL, and cut Google out of AOL, then Google would be out $400Million a year.

    I see this purchase as Google protecting the traffic it gets from AOL. In a little over 2 years they will have made their $1 billion back.

    Remember when Ballmer said "I'm going to kill google?". Google just spent some of its HUGE cash pile on protection against MS. Fair play to them.