Feb 20th 2015

What Is Google AdWords?

AdWords is the world's largest PPC (pay-per-click) advertising platform. It is so big and effective that some advertisers don’t use any other form of Internet advertising--they bring in as much new business as they can handle using AdWords alone. Google makes most of its money through its AdWords advertising network--a total of approximately $25 billion in 2009.

AdWords includes:

  1. Text ads appearing on Google.com, Ask.com, AOL Search, and Netscape SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages).

    All of these SERP's are generated by Google.

  2. Text, banner, and video ads appearing on Google's "AdSense Network" of websites, enewsletters, and web-based email (Gmail).

    The AdSense Publisher Network is made up of millions of pages displaying blocks of advertising labeled "Ads By Google" and "Sponsored Ads". These non-Google pages provide clicks for Google's and its advertisers. The website or enewsletter publisher keeps around 50% of amount the you, the advertiser, pays for each click.

  3. Ads appearing on SERP's resulting from searches using Google search boxes on millions of non-Google webpages across the Web.

    Searches using Google search boxes on the AdSense Search Network serve SERP's similar or identical to Google.com SERP's; matching the keywords used for the search to advertisements containing the same or similar keywords. Website owners who put a Google search box on their website do not get paid for a search, but if the resulting SERP gets a click, the website owner splits the revenue with Google.

So, to summarize...

The "AdSense Search Network" and the "AdSense Publisher Network" combined comprise the "AdSense Network", which itself is a subset of the larger "AdWords Network". The AdWords Network is the sum total of the AdSense Network combined with the Google/Ask/AOL/Netscape SERP's advertising platform.

  • (Adsense Search Network) + (AdSense Publisher Network) = AdSense Network
  • Google + Ask + AOL + Netscape = AdWords Search Network
  • (AdWords Search Network) + (AdSense Network) = AdWords Network

Most small businesses advertising on AdWords opt out of running Adsense ads; choosing to have their ads appear on Google.com and Google search partner SERP's only, foregoing the placement of any ads on the AdSense Network. If you opt out of AdSense you will only see your ads appear on SERP's on:

  • Google.com for keyphrases related to your business
  • Google.com's Local Business Ads for Google Maps
  • Netscape, AOL, and Ask.com for keyphrases related to your business


AdWords text advertisements are short, usually with a title line, two content text lines, and a fourth line being a link to the advertiser's website. Below is a screenshot of a Google.com SERP resulting from a search for "florida vacation rentals on the beach". The ads on top have only two lines in this case, while the ads in the right hand column have four lines.

Besides having your adverts show up on Google.com SERP's as in the above example, you can, as I mentioned previously, opt to have your ads show on Google's AdSense Network, which is comprised of millions of webpages all across the Web and in web-based email and e-newsletters. This is called "contextual advertising" because Google tries to match the keywords in the adverts with the subject matter of the page on which the advert appears. Below is a screenshot of an example of AdWords ads showing up on the AdSense Network, in this case a publisher website, more specifically a blog about vacations in southwest Florida.

In the next blog post, I'll cover how a PPC network determines cost-per-click charged to you and your competing advertisers.