Google launches incredible and expandable ads

Google’s main source of income are ads. And there is no doubt that online ads are hurting in our current economic recession. The AdSense team announced new expandable ad units.

You’ve undoubtedly already seen ads from other ad providers. They are ads that start out as regular box or rectangle ads, but then expand into much larger ones that sit on top of content. Undoubtedly they are annoying.

Google’s expanding ads won’t auto-expand or do so on a mouse roll-over. They will only expand when the user clicks to interact with the ad.

And these ads could actually be someone useful in very specific circumstances. Sometimes I actually do want to watch the trailer,but why would I ever watch it on a tiny 200×200 ad space? With expandable ads, these movie trailer players could be made larger, as Google notes in its blog post.

Like other ads, these new expandable ones come in the cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) variety.

Google has more information on its FAQ page. FAQs are:

Will expandable ads alter my site’s layout or be disruptive to my users?

No. In order to protect the publisher and user experience, Google have created several policies around how expandable ads work:

• Ads will expand only after a user clicks and interacts with the ad.
• Mouseovers or rollovers won’t trigger the ad, in order to prevent accidental expansions.
• An expandable ad won’t expand more than double its width or height.
• Once expanded, the ad will appear as a layer over the page content so that your content will not be modified or shifted in any way.
• The user may close the expanded panel at any time.

Other FAQ’s can be viewed here.