WebProNews

Even though Jason Calacanis didn't show up for the Earning From Search & Contextual Ads session as scheduled, attendees made do with the likes of Google, Yahoo, the New York Times' About.com, AOL, and JenSense discussing the topic.

Ah yes, everyone wants to tap the online advertising ATM, from individual political bloggers to Microsoft. What can companies like Google and Yahoo do to make contextual advertising better for publishers? How about for advertisers? And do end users get enough consideration? Tell us on WebProWorld.

Thanks again to WebProNews publisher Rich Ord, we get a nice quote from JenSense operator Jennifer Slegg about a simple change publishers must make when implementing AdSense on their sites.

"AdSense should never ever use the default ad colors. It's like running your fingernails down a chalkboard to me," she said. Also, she noted that content surrounding the ad unit can influence the ads appearing there.

On AdSense, Google's Satya Patel, a business product manager, noted the strategy that has proved very effective for Google's bottom line: "When a consumer sees advertising they want it to be extremely relevant and they don't want it to be intrusive."

Patel noted Google's latest development, On-Site Advertiser Signup, which launched only recently. This lets publishers customize promotion of Google AdWords based on what their sites can offer to advertisers, and even handle the sale themselves if they like.

One service that Google is developing, though it's not ready for release yet, has been RSS advertising. However, Yahoo has had that service available for a couple of months now.

Yahoo Search Marketing's Will Johnson said that consumers would increasingly view content, and ads, from places like email and RSS feeds instead of on a published site itself.

Johnson also talked about the Yahoo Publisher Network, which launched over the summer after the SES conference in San Jose. That program, still in beta, has about 3,000 publishers participating currently. "The thing to keep in mind with our program is that we are in beta and we are learning. My sense is that over time we will offer more controls for publishers and advertisers," Johnson said.

About.com CEO/president Scott Mayer said, "Contextual advertising makes the most out of each page view." His site ranks as the tenth biggest on the web, with about 500 writers contributing content. Mayer cited challenges associated with contextual advertising, too:

- It requires the right placements and a great deal of maintenance;
- Vendors have not yet cracked the code for targeting the individual;
- Local advertising is still underdeveloped.

With numerous sites like AOL, MSN, Google, Yahoo, SuperPages.com, and YellowPages.com working on local advertising, WPN thinks it isn't likely the issue will remain underdeveloped for long.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.