I came across this rather curious message on the top of a forum that I'm not associated with ...

... and it struck me that I've never given a quick intro (in my words) to how Google Ads 'works'.

The Google Ads model

1. Google generates a lot of visitors to its search engine - a huge number of people use it, and they use it when they are looking to find something

2. In order to provide as wide a range of answers as possible, thus encouraging visitors to return, Google lists as many websites as possible and for free. It needs really good content lists, so a crawler called "Googlebot" automatically visits sites and lists pages. Google is also free to the information seeker, as again it wants to build up a heavy and loyal traffic.

3. Commercial Operations want their business to come high in Google's listing and much work is done with "Search Engine Optimisation" by web site builders and maintainers. Indeed, commercial organisations are prepared to pay Google to make them more visible - and that's where AdWords comes in. Companies (and we use the service) place a two line advert with Google, which Google will display on appropriate pages. Three notes:

3a. Google uses a context sensitive placement system so that adversisers can tune their adverts to appear on search results pages which they (the advertiser) will consider relevant.

3b. Payment is on a "pay per click" basis, so that adverts are only paid for when a searcher actually clicks through the advert. This encourages advertisers to sign up, as it's "no interest, no fee". And it's on an an auction / bid system so that the adverts shown on any particular page are those which - broadly speaking - bring Google the highest income per click

3c. Adverts are kept apart from the "line entry" or free listings to encourage a continuing foundation for the search engine.

So why that strange message I started this email with? In order to allow their adverts to reach even more potential customers, Google allow their adverts to also be displayed on other web sites that choose to do so.

4. Web sites that wish to display Google Ads sign up to Google for an advert feed, and then display those adverts.

5. When visitors click through the Google Ads on a third party site, Google is notified of that click through to bill the company who's site has been visited.

6. Google also pays a fee to the third party site that gave them and the adveriser the extra exposure - a financial inducement to carry Adwords on the site.

Back again to that curious message that I stared this post with. What it's really saying is "Look - you're probably not interested in these adverts, but have a look at them anyway so that you get the advertisers to pay me some money!"

---

At Well House Consultants, we do place some advertising with Google through AdWords but we have made a business decision not to include their advertising on our pages. As metrics change, we may find a different balance in the future that leads to a review of this decision in certain techincal areas. It's not "on principle".
(written 2008-05-25)

 G902 - Well House Consultants - Web site techniques, utility and visibility
  [3589] Promoting a single one of your domains on the search engines - (2012-01-22)
  [3563] How big is a web page these days? Does the size of your pages matter? - (2011-12-26)
  [3554] Learning more about our web site - and learning how to learn about yours - (2011-12-17)
  [3532] Sharing the user experience - designing a form with the customer in mind - (2011-11-29)
  [3491] Who is knocking at your web site door? Are you well set up to deal with allcomers? - (2011-10-21)
  [3426] Automed web site testing scripted in Ruby using watir-webdriver - (2011-09-09)
  [3367] Google +1 - what is it? - (2011-07-22)
  [3197] Finding and diverting image requests from rogue domains - (2011-03-08)
  [3149] Looking back at www.wellho.net - (2011-01-28)
  [3087] Making the most of critical emails - reading behind the scene - (2010-12-16)
  [3022] Retaining web site visitors - reducing the one page wonders - (2010-10-31)
  [2981] How to set up short and meaningfull alternative URLs - (2010-10-02)
  [2668] Is it worth it? - (2010-03-09)
  [2569] How to run a successful online poll / petition / survey / consultation - (2010-01-10)
  [2552] Web site traffic - real users, or just noise? - (2009-12-26)
  [2532] Analysing Google arrivals by country of origin - (2009-12-10)
  [2519] Status Page / breaks of service in early December - (2009-11-30)
  [2410] Removal of technical resources from this site - (2009-09-19)
  [2389] Writing with our customers words - (2009-09-01)
  [2341] Koulutus, Open Source tietokone kielillä - (2009-08-09)
  [2340] ldning, Open Source dator språk - (2009-08-09)
  [2339] Opplæring, Open Source datamaskinen språk - (2009-08-09)
  [2338] Uddannelse, Open Source computer sprog - (2009-08-09)
  [2337] Opleiding, Open Source computertalen - (2009-08-09)
  [2336] Formação, Open Source computador línguas - (2009-08-09)
  [2335] Ausbildung, die Open-Source-Sprachen - (2009-08-09)
  [2334] Formazione, Open Source computer lingue - (2009-08-09)
  [2333] Formación, de los lenguajes de código abierto - (2009-08-09)
  [2332] Formation, des langages Open Source - (2009-08-09)
  [2225] How important is a front page ranking on a search engine? - (2009-06-09)
  [2065] Static mirroring through HTTrack, wget and others - (2009-03-03)
  [2056] Web Site Loading - experiences and some solutions shared - (2009-02-26)
  [1982] Cooking bodies and URLs - (2009-01-08)
  [1970] Plagarism - who is copying my pages? - (2009-01-02)
  [1961] Making our things easier to find - (2008-12-26)
  [1955] How to avoid duplicating web page maintainance - (2008-12-20)
  [1888] Find the link - (2008-11-16)
  [1856] A few of my favourite things - (2008-10-26)
  [1833] Web Bloopers - good form design - avoiding pitfalls - (2008-10-11)
  [1797] I have been working hard but I do not expect you noticed - (2008-09-14)
  [1793] Which country does a search engine think you are located in? - (2008-09-11)
  [1756] Ever had One of THOSE mornings? - (2008-08-16)
  [1747] Who is watching you? - (2008-08-10)
  [1711] Rapid growth leads to server move - (2008-07-17)
  [1634] Kiss and Book - (2008-05-07)
  [1630] To provide external links, or not? - (2008-05-04)
  [1610] PHP course dot co, dot uk - (2008-04-13)
  [1554] Online hotel reservations - Melksham, Wiltshire (near Bath) - (2008-02-24)
  [1541] Colour, Composition or Content - (2008-02-16)
  [1534] Where in the world / country is my visitor from? - (2008-02-07)
  [1513] Perl, PHP or Python? No - Perl AND PHP AND Python! - (2008-01-20)
  [1506] Ongoing Image Copyright Issues, PHP and MySQL solutions - (2008-01-14)
  [1505] Script to present commonly used images - PHP - (2008-01-13)
  [1494] A time to update pictures - (2008-01-03)
  [1437] Above the fold with First Great Western - (2007-11-19)
  [1297] Stuffing content into a web page - easy maintainance - (2007-08-09)
  [1237] What proportion of our web traffic is robots? - (2007-06-19)
  [1212] What brought YOU to our web site? - (2007-06-01)
  [1207] Simple but effective use of mod_rewrite (Apache httpd) - (2007-05-27)
  [1198] From Web to Web 2 - (2007-05-21)
  [1186] Two new pages / sites - (2007-05-14)
  [1184] Finding resources - some pointers - (2007-05-13)
  [1177] Sorting out for a site map - (2007-05-05)
  [1104] Drawing dynamic graphs in PHP - (2007-03-09)
  [1055] Above the fold - (2007-01-28)
  [1029] Our search engine placement is dropping. - (2007-01-11)
  [1015] Search engine placement - long term strategy and success - (2006-12-30)
  [994] Training on Cascading Style Sheets - (2006-12-17)
  [976] Santa at the station - (2006-12-09)
  [916] Driving customers away - (2006-11-07)
  [893] Visibility - (2006-10-14)
  [800] Effective web campaign? - (2006-07-12)
  [767] Finding the language preference of a web site visitor - (2006-06-18)
  [757] Horse and Python training - (2006-06-12)
  [732] Where is a web site visitor browsing from - (2006-05-24)
  [718] Protecting images from theft - (2006-05-12)
  [681] Mirroring a dynamic site - (2006-04-12)
  [658] Keeping the visitors happy and browsing - (2006-03-26)
  [649] Denial of Service ''attack'' - (2006-03-17)
  [533] Bigger Box Campaign - (2005-12-18)
  [528] Getting favicon to work - avoiding common pitfalls - (2005-12-14)
  [510] Dynamic Web presence - next generation web site - (2005-11-29)
  [492] New Navigation Aid - Launch of My Wellho - (2005-11-11)
  [414] Form Madness - (2005-08-14)
  [376] What brings people to my web site? - (2005-07-13)
  [369] CMS - the minefield of Choices - (2005-07-05)
  [348] Graveyard pages - (2005-06-15)
  [347] Frightening and from-friend viruses and spams - (2005-06-14)
  [322] More maps - (2005-05-23)
  [320] Ordnance Survey - using a 'Get a map' - (2005-05-22)
  [314] What language is this written in? - (2005-05-17)
  [311] Growth pains - (2005-05-14)
  [288] Colour blindness for web developers - (2005-04-22)
  [284] The Iconish language - (2005-04-19)
  [278] Cover all the options - (2005-04-13)
  [276] An apology to Mr Boneparte - (2005-04-11)
  [274] Our most popular resources - (2005-04-10)
  [268] Information request forms, cleaning up spam - (2005-04-05)
  [261] Putting a form online - (2005-03-29)
  [259] Responding to spam - (2005-03-27)
  [222] Who are all these visitors? - (2005-02-20)
  [202] Searching for numbers - (2005-02-04)
  [197] Allow for peak traffic on your web site - (2005-02-01)
  [182] Your personal Google ranking - (2005-01-19)
  [179] The hunt for unique words - (2005-01-16)
  [173] Data Mining - (2005-01-09)
  [165] Implementing an effective site search engine - (2005-01-01)
  [142] Colour for access - (2004-12-06)
  [117] A case of case - (2004-11-14)
  [109] URLs - a service and not a hurdle - (2004-11-04)
  [98] No more 'Error 404' pages. Something better. - (2004-10-24)
  [32] Web design platoon - (2004-08-29)
  [23] Skills and responsibilities - (2004-08-22)

Back to Old Sarum airfield brings back fond memories

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Forward to The old sayings are the best (FSB)

Farewell, Newcastle to Stavanger, Haugsund and Bergen
Be careful of misreading server statistics
A date for your diary - 16th July 2008
The old sayings are the best (FSB)
How do Google Ads work?
Old Sarum airfield brings back fond memories
ls command - favourite options
Looking for files with certain characteristics (Linux / Unix)
Easy conversion - image formats, currencies and distances
The tourists guide to Linux