Google Ad Exchange to Go Live, Take on Yahoo's Display Ad Business

Today is a big day for Google. One that’s been anticipated for quite some time now. Today is the day that Google expands away from the text ad empire they have built into the wild territory of display advertising. Google plans to launch a sort of ad exchange, operating a little like a stock exchange, that will allow advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ad space on websites.

If you can’t make it on Wall Street, maybe you should try Silicon Valley.

The Google ad exchange is a direct attempt by Google to steal some of the business dominated by Yahoo in the online ad industry. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said text ad revenue has tapered off and the display advertising market is Google’s best shot at expanding revenue.

If Google’s success at dominating text ads, and the company’s vast influence on the internet in general, is any indication, things are about to get really interesting in the display ad business.

The display ad system Google is debuting is called the DoubleClick Ad Exchange. The name comes from the original ad company, DoubleClick, which Google bought last year for $3.1 billion. The DoubleClick Ad Exchange will simplify the way businesses and site owners buy and sell advertising for the Web. The system will make it easier for people to find the correct audience for their ads and sell them quicker.

Currently, Yahoo dominates the display ad market, brokering ads that show up all over the internet. Google has an advantage though, if they can create an uncomplicated exchange system, simply because so many sites and businesses are already using AdSense and AdWords to advertise. They already have a working relationship with Google, and it probably wouldn’t take much to get them to convert to buying and selling display ads through DoubleClick. It’s quite possible that this new system will further expand the way Google dominates what we see on the internet.

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