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Contextual advertising refers to ads that are related to the content of the webpage. It can be done through personal profiling or website content. Non-invasive models like AdSense are successful and beneficial for both advertisers and audiences.
Contextual advertising is advertising that refers directly to the content of the web page on which it is served: it is advertising that is in context with its environment.
For example, a Google search for digital cameras results in a page with sponsored links to websites that offer information about digital cameras or sell digital cameras. Ads are contextually related to your search.
Websites that have high traffic can also make money by renting space to marketers who place banners or pop-ups on the site. In this case, the person who places the ads chooses ads that relate to the content of the pages where they will be displayed.
The roots of online contextual advertising were initially based on personal profiling, which exploded in 1995 with the advent of permanent cookie technology. However, contextual advertising based on the surreptitious profiling of individuals’ surfing habits has been viewed as invasive and, according to countless surveys over the years, highly objectionable by the majority of the surfing public; most internet users do not want to be profiled in order to receive contextual advertising.
Actual sales based on contextual advertising through surreptitious profiling have been very disappointing. Marketers underestimated the resistance people would face to the invasion of privacy. When major profilers like DoubleClick announced proposed mergers with offline marketers that could lead to triangulated databases that match browsing habits to real-life names and addresses, the public was outraged. The pressure was to move to a less invasive model that still offered relevant marketing power.
Modern contextual advertising models that are based not on cookie profiling, but on website content, are finding great success. Google made non-invasive contextual advertising easy with AdSense. Overture, Kanoodle and Quigo are other contextual advertising brokers. Here you can register to have contextual sponsored links placed in a location on your website. Every time a visitor to your site clicks on a sponsored link, you earn a small commission.
Contextual advertising like that offered by services like AdSense is a big boon for both advertiser and audience, making it easy for people to find what they want in a timely manner without relying on invasive and unpopular profiling.
