CNN Renews, Extends Google AdSense Partnership

CNN announced that it has renewed its Google AdSense partnership, a multi-year deal that will make Google the exclusive provider of auction-based text ads throughout CNN.com in the U.S. The deal will also open up the extensive inventory on CNN.com to AdWords advertisers, but both companies were mum on the deal's financial details.

Although it is a contextual ad exclusive, the deal does not extend to search--as searches on CNN.com in the U.S. currently return results that are "powered by Google," while the same searches on CNN's International sites are "powered by Yahoo." The media giant signed an advertising deal with Yahoo in 2004--no word on whether it will turn banner and display ads over to Google as well.

This marks the second major news organization to ink a contextual targeting deal with Google, as in July, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive renewed its agreement for text-based ads (as well as added search functionality).

Online marketer reactions to the deal were mostly positive, with one commenter on Search Engine Land saying: "It's great to see that AdSense/AdWords is starting to clean up their content network publishers, because for the most part, they get the content matching right when it comes to CNN. Although the traffic volume could be better, readers who click through convert much better than your average AdWords sponsored search display ad."

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