How does Google make so much money?

Question

I heard from adverts but how can this be so? Crappy little postage stamp sized ads that i always ignore or never respond to? Am i unique in this or does everyone else buy goods and services from online advertising therefore making the likes of Google money which they make from charges advertisers to advertise with them?

The point im trying to make is who is buying from these ads? who is being paid to surf - i dont know anyone who does either?!!!

Its free to have a website listed i thought. Google looks pretty advert free to me!

Answer 1

You may not be clicking on Google ads and maybe ignoring them, but a lot of people respond to the ads. From Google's income statement, their revenue breakdown for Q2 2006 is:

Revenues2,455,991
Y/Y Growth rate77%
Q/Q Growth rate9%

      Google web sites = 1,432,461
      Y/Y Growth rate = 94%
      Q/Q Growth rate = 10%
      Google network web sites = 996,567
      Y/Y Growth rate = 58%
      Q/Q Growth rate = 7%

Total advertising revenues = 2,429,028
Y/Y Growth rate = 78%
Q/Q Growth rate = 9%

Licensing & other revenues = 26,963
Y/Y Growth rate = 58%

As % of revenues
Google web sites = 58%
Google network web sites = 41%
Licensing & other revenue = 1%

Answer 2

Advertisements may be just a legitimate way of laundering money. There may be illegitimate activities which Google transact, for which they cannot directly bill.

It is pretty much like the MAFIA. They had a lot of cover stories for their businesses, but in the end the actual businesses they conducted were just fronts for the real activities.

You could guess what those real activities actually are, or you could set up your own search engine and see whether you made any money. Then try and work out why not. Then when you realise that money is not being made doing what the business says it is doing, then it must be doing something else.

Perhaps it is prostitution, or drug smuggling? Governments often get involved in these areas, or at least take a cut of the illegal money. That is why they never seem to be able to stop it!

Answer 3

Anything you see on the right hand side of google listings are paid for ads, each time someone clicks they get a small percentage of a few pence. Multiply this by the millions of pages they show then it's serious money. Also you see on other sites that there are boxes with "Ads by Goooooogle" on they are also making money off those. Also Google sell their search technology to large companies to search their business data more efficiently.

Answer 4

Advertisments. As do many search engines, and websites. Google like Yahoo charges fees to be placed on their search engine. (If you have a website and want it to be found through google search) there is a fee to pay a month or yearly. This is a way to make money. They are also paid to place ads on their websites for companies. Whether they are being clicked on or not this is advertisement for the company and they pay to have them placed on google.

Answer 5

Look for all the 'Sponsored' Listings, and also the 'related' Adverts down the right hand side.

If you do a search for "Digital Camera" there will be loads of liinks for people trying to sell you digital cameras. - You've already stated you are interested by doing the search, the advertisers pay to have their links put at the the top of the search.

Answer 6

Google get money by adverts in a 90%, the others revenues are of third party business.

Bye!

Answer 7

Google gets money just for SHOWING the ads, and they get even more if it leads to a sale.

Answer 8

made all there money by floating on stock exchange they dont actually make much money at the moment but people have invested in the future potential

Answer 9

from people paying to be top of search results and sponsered listings etc, pay per click and so on.