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Google is now showing text ads in image searches regularly. This is not the first time people have noticed such ads, but it is probably so for this frequency.

"Since 2005, we have reported signs of Google placing ads on their image search service," notes Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable. "In May 2008, Google said they would run ads on image search and then signs of text ads on image search back in December. But it has really not stuck and people saw the ads on and off."

It looks like they're full on now though. You can perform any number of searches and get ads. Granted, you will not get them on every single query, but most keywords that somebody could sell will probably return them.

For example, a search for “cars” or “t shirts” will return them:


 

Even a search for my name Chris Crum returned an ad: "Find Chris Crum with..." A search for "fruit" returned a Walmart ad. Searches for say "United States" or "Egypt" or "pythagorean theorem" don't turn up ads. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it seems to be basically if you can sell it online, there will be ads.