If you are curious about how ads from the forthcoming adCenter service will look after it replaces Overture this summer, a testing site lets visitors glimpse the future according to adCenter.
What it doesn’t show: the prospect of a leveled-off online ad marketplace.
To be honest, it doesn’t look any different from what one sees today at MSN Search. A query for “DVD player” on the adCenter test page and the main MSN Search site returns the same top organic link, three links in the Sponsored Links box atop the MSN Shopping links, and five paid-search ads at the right of the results.
The sponsors and ads on each page are different. Mousing over an ad link in MSN Search shows how it routes through Yahoo’s Overture business. Do the same action on the MSN adCenter search page, and the link goes to MSN.
Barry Schwartz revealed the trick to seeing the new adCenter results. But is MSN entering the online advertising business too late to really capitalize on that market?
Publishing 2.0 blogger Scott Karp offered the considered opinion that search advertising may have reached a plateau, based on the collected reports of several publications on keyword costs and marketing initiatives:
I don’t think there’s evidence that search advertising is about to decline, but the growth spurt may be coming to and end. With ad dollars still pouring into digital media, the flattening of search ad spending suggests that the growth of display advertising could represent a trend, as marketers try to balance long-term brand building with short-term sales efforts.
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David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
