A site in Belarus looks like the Google homepage displaying advertising in Belarusian, but the site is not owned by Google.
A quick peek at Google.by looks like the typical Google homepage, albeit in the native language. The difference between it and Google.com is the advertising displayed on the right side of the page.
Was Google dispensing with its familiar, minimalist look, and using an obscure Google top-level domain to test the prospects of homepage advertising? Nope. Marketing guru Andy Beal was one of several bloggers who commented on the site, but has now found the site isn’t what it seems.
Beal noted that Google director of corporate communications David Krane confirmed the site in question is not owned by Google. InsideGoogle’s Nathan Weinberg commented on the blog that queries to the site redirect to Google.com with the language set to Russian.
Also, Beal referenced a comment by Google VP of search products Marissa Mayer, who said “We don’t believe in untargeted ads, so how are we possibly going to serve a targeted ad on that page?”
(The answer to that, of course, is that Google wouldn’t serve a targeted CPC ad, but it certainly could serve a CPM ad instead. Imagine how much Google could charge for CPM advertising on Google.com itself.)
—
Email the author here.
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo My Web
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
