Google offers low-budget Internet ad service

PALO ALTO: Internet search engine Google Inc. on Monday introduced a new,

cheaper advertising service that it said should enable more small and local

businesses to place ads on its site.

Google said the service will be based on individual keywords, which

advertisers can buy to ensure that their ads appear whenever those words are

entered in a search.

Privately held Google operates an award-winning service, which powers all the

searches on Yahoo and other big content sites. Google said it hopes the

keyword-based advertising will open up for it a new revenue stream based on

smaller companies that cannot afford big-budget Internet advertising campaigns.

"It's ideal for companies that may not have huge advertising budgets,

like family-owned restaurants," said a spokeswoman for Mountain View,

Calif.-based Google. She offered the example of a restaurant in the city of

Mountain View, which may opt to purchase the keywords "mountain view

restaurants" or "silicon valley breweries."

Although advertisers will be able to select their own keywords, Google said

it will monitor their ads to prevent against random associations, such as

popular celebrity names, which actually have nothing to do with the business

being advertised, but could draw a big audience.

Google said it already has 350 companies signed up for the program, which

costs about a third of the premiere advertising it offers to larger businesses.

Google generates revenues through advertising as well as licensing deals in

which it sells its search technology to other companies like Yahoo.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.