• by Shankar Gupta , September 30, 2005

Search giant Google has started promoting its relatively new feature that enables advertisers to target individual sites and pay on a cost-per-thousand impression model, rather than Google's usual pay-per-click formulation.

For now, Google has placed links that read "Advertise on this site" and on certain sites within the Google Network. Clicking on the link takes visitors to a landing page that details the program. Marketers that click on the link but don't have a Google AdWords account are walked through the process of establishing one before being allowed to bid on ad space on the site.

A Google spokesman called the ads a "limited test" that was recently started on a small number of AdSense sites.

In June, Google announced that it would allow advertisers to target individual sites and bid on keywords using cost-per-thousand impression pricing, rather than pay-per-click. Advertisers who bid on a price-per-impression basis on individual sites will compete directly in Google's keyword auction system with other cost-per-click bidders who are bidding on keywords across the AdSense network. Google will combine the pay-per-click rate with the ad's click-through rate to yield an estimated price-per-impression figure. That estimate will be compared to the marketer's cost-per-thousand impression bid.