• John Battelle's Searchblog/GigaOm, Thursday, November 8, 2007 11:45 AM

As ever, Google has a few announcements today, including an interesting tweak to the way it targets AdWords ads to Web pages. The search giant will now let advertisers choose specific subsections of sites that they want to target. As a result, Google is renaming its "site targeting" tactic "placement targeting." Introduced a few years ago, so-called "site targeting" enabled advertisers on Google's content network to target ads by site and demographic. Now, advertisers can choose specific sections of larger sites, like the sports pages of a news agency like Reuters, in addition to choosing a specific ad unit (such as a block of Google ads) on a particular Web page. The name change simply refers to the expanded ability to target within a given site.

Search guru John Battelle says this represents a next step in Google's evolution. The company has always gone after scale, but as it matures, it needs to provide more and better services for its advertisers--particularly brand advertisers--like enhanced targeting. Says Battelle: "the company is still entirely focused on scaled, software-driven approaches. But it's working its way toward approaches that only work when humans are involved. Very interesting."

Separately, GigaOm reports that Google this month is set to unveil an in-game advertising initiative. Earlier in the year, the search giant purchased in-game ad-serving firm AdScape for $23 million; sources reveal that the first part of a two-step strategy involves embedding video pre-rolls on casual games.

Read the whole story at John Battelle's Searchblog/GigaOm »