Google Introduces "Interest-based" Advertising for Adsense

Calling all Adsense advertisers! Google announced that Adsense is undergoing some changes due to the upcoming launch of "Interest-based" advertising. My first thought was, what the heck is that?!

On their blog, Google explains that ....

"Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310"

Although the description leaves something to be desired and is a bit cryptic, it seems clear that Google believes Adsense adversiers can look forward to increased visibility and bang for the buck in the future. Initially the offering will be limited to a certain number of advertisers as part of beta testing, but the remainder of users can look forward to seeing this in later 2009.

Anyone using Adsense will need to check their privacy policy and make any adjustments necessary to cover the new "Interest-based" advertising. The deadline for doing so is April 8, 2009. For info on how you can adjust your settings, you can visit https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557.

If you're interested in reading more about Google's interest-based advertising, you can visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html. Already there are multiple Google fans weighing in with over 80 comments and questions on the subject as of today, March 13th.