• by John Gaffney , March 5, 2003

Yesterday, Google announced it will spread its content based advertising service beyond its own borders, and in the process it served notice to the Internet business that it is moving strongly toward a new network business model.

It still lacks a sexy name, but the portal that has made paid search a lucrative business, is undertaking an initiative that allows it to control advertising on partner content publisher web pages.

From Google’s perspective, for example, it means that a new deal with Knight-Ridder newspapers gives it more reach to advertisers because it can sell relevant search keywords on The Philadelphia Enquirer site. Sites like the Enquirer, in turn, can give an entire section of their site to Google to sell. That’s a big advantage in times when a sales staff can be challenged to fill banner inventory. It also means that a whole website that generated minimal revenue can participate in a revenue split with Google.

“Google has reached the tipping point in terms of how much relevant search and keywords we can sell on our site,” said VP of sales Tim Armstrong. “To dramatically reach the reach we can afford to our advertisers we’ve started this program that will not only give them more reach, but better ROI.”

And for Google, it puts targeted keyword sales in a position to lead its effort into a new kind of network. Where banner-based networks increasingly found it difficult over the past years to make their site networks compelling, Google can conglomerate more sites and more pages within sites to place its advertising model.

Charter members of the current content-based program participants include Knight Ridder Digital properties (San Jose Mercury News, Detroit Free Press, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer) and HowStuffWorks. Content-targeted ads also appear on Google Groups (groups.google.com), Google's search site for online newsgroups. Armstrong expects to staff up to pitch other large and mid-sized publishing companies soon.

“I think some of our other portal partners will sign up for this service soon,” Armstrong said. “I also think there’s a huge opportunity fro B-to-B web publishers. Its hard for them to have the infrastructure to sell these k of programs.”