• TechCrunch, Friday, July 18, 2008 11:15 AM

Fresh from its poor second quarter earnings report, Google is aiming to boost overseas revenues through the acquisition of Russian contextual ad firm ZAO Begun. TechCrunch reports that the search giant has agreed to pay UK-based Rambler Media $140 million for the firm.

Rambler owned a 50.1% stake in Begun, but agreed to by the rest of it in order to sell to Google at a profit. The UK company will net about $50 million from the deal. As part of the deal, Rambler will now use Google AdSense for its search and contextual services.

Google is particularly eager to gain a foothold in Russia, where Yandex, the Russian search engine, is king, accounting for approximately 64% of the $225 million Russian search market, according to TechCrunch. Google has not, until recently, made much of a dent in Russia, but it must foresee a huge opportunity if the company's willing to pay $140 million for a company operating in a country whose total search market is less than double the buying price.

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