Business overview

From the beginning, we’ve been working on technology that can improve on existing ways of doing business. We provide a variety of services and tools for advertisers of all sizes, from simple text ads to display and mobile advertising, and to publishers, whether small or large. Not only are these programs the backbone of our company; they’ve also enabled entrepreneurs and publishers around the world to grow their businesses and become successful. Google succeeds when the tools that we’ve built are useful to our users, our advertisers and other partners. And of course, the root of our business is to provide useful and relevant information to the millions of people around the world who rely on Google search to provide the answers they are seeking. For more information on our services for businesses, visit the Business Solutions page.

Search advertising

Since our first advertising program, AdWords, was introduced in 2000, our goal has been to show people ads that are so useful and relevant that they are a form of information in their own right. With AdWords, advertisers create simple text ads that then appear beside related search results as well as on of thousands of partner sites. Advertisers select their own target keywords and only pay when customers click on their ads. It‘s easy to create ad text and manage online advertising accounts with no large upfront payment required. We also provide tools for advertisers to measure and improve the effectiveness of their ads in order to maximize their profits as well as continually improve the ads that people see on Google. As the search advertising business continues to evolve worldwide, we’re exploring new formats, such as for mobile devices, that will make ads even more relevant for everyone.

Display advertising

As the Internet ecosystem has evolved, so too have ad formats. Today we’re deeply invested in display advertising, which we believe is an area of significant future growth not only for Google, but for online publishers. We believe the technology and expertise we’ve developed in search and search ads can improve display advertising for users, advertisers and publishers across the web. Our display advertising products include the Google Display Network (comprising over a million partner websites, and Google-owned sites like YouTube) and our DoubleClick advertising technology. We aim to simplify display advertising so it’s easier for advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across different formats, on different websites and for different devices. We also work to offer advertisers better and more measurable results from their campaigns, and to make display advertising open and accessible for every advertiser and publisher, from the smallest corner store to the biggest global brand. Simply put, a display advertising system built on better technology can benefit everyone on the Internet.

Mobile advertising

Driven by the growth of smartphones with full WebKit browsers, mobile devices will soon overtake PCs as the primary way people around the world access the web. We offer advertisers the ability to run search ad campaigns on mobile devices with popular mobile-specific ad formats, such as click-to-call ads (advertisers can include a phone number within ad text). We also offer formats for mobile websites and mobile apps that facilitate reaching users on the go, which helps developers and publishers make money from their mobile content. And in 2010, we acquired in-app ads leader AdMob, which offers effective ad units and solutions for app developers and advertisers.

Tools for publishers

Advertising can enhance the experience for visitors to an online publisher‘s website as it helps publishers fund the cost of creating valuable content. This is why we’ve built services to support many hundreds of thousands of publishers on the Internet, from living-room bloggers to the largest newspapers in the world. With AdSense, Google delivers ads that are precisely targeted to search results or the content on a site‘s pages. AdSense publishers can get the most revenue possible for their ad space without having to manage advertiser relationships. For larger publishers, our ad serving technology (DFP) serves the most valuable ad that they‘ve sold directly to advertisers or ad agencies. And the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, a real-time auction marketplace, maximizes large publishers’ overall returns by “dynamically allocating” the highest-value ad, whether directly sold, or indirectly sold through an ad network. With all these services, our goal is to help online publishers maximize revenue and get the data they need to make the most effective use of their ad space. When publishers can maximize their returns, everyone using the web benefits from more vibrant online content.

Local

Our free easy-to-use tools help local business owners manage their presence on the web and grow their services. Any business can use our online local database called Google Places to add a new listing or edit an existing one. These listings appear for free when potential customers search for products, services and businesses on Google.com or Google Maps. Claiming a business listing ensures that people can quickly and easily receive the most accurate and current information about a business, such as location, phone number and hours of operation. Business owners can also edit and check their information at any time to find out how many people have seen or clicked on their free listing. Because the ability to target advertising to a specific region is a key part of building a local business, in addition to local targeting through AdWords, we offer Google Tags, a simple flat-fee advertising program for business owners to highlight their listings with details on their key differentiators. Thousands of business owners are using tag types such as coupons, custom posts, photos and videos to make their listings stand out.

Enterprise

We’ve been committed to the enterprise business since we first introduced the Google Search Appliance in 2002. Adoption of Google Apps, available to businesses since 2007, continues to grow: Today more than 3 million businesses, from mom-and-pops to big corporations, use Google Apps—which includes email, documents, calendars and more—to communicate and collaborate in the workplace. Cloud computing—web-based software that people can use on any device with a browser and an Internet connection (no special software or hardware required)—is especially suited to the workplace: employees can access their data anytime and anywhere in order to collaborate on and share documents in real time, freeing them up to be productive in other ways that weren’t possible with traditional desktop applications. Our apps are constantly updated, so IT departments and employees don’t have to deal with new versions and installations, thereby reducing overall costs. Further, we believe Google Apps can be more secure than traditional applications: Companies don’t need to manage software security patches because we take care of that. Google Apps is the first cloud computing suite of message and collaboration tools to receive U.S. government security certification. We also keep live copies of your data on multiple servers in each of multiple locations, so there’s no scheduled downtime and no single point of failure. We continue to add value to Google Apps and our other enterprise tools for all of our business and organizational customers—current and future.