I always wondered this. Never quite understood how there is so much money involved in Google and YouTube(even before they were bought by Google).
I mean, google, a search engine... end user doesn't have to pay anything to search. YouTube, same, you don't have to pay anything to upload/download a movie...
So how come there are milions(bilions) of dollars involved here, where do they come from.
Ok, there are advertisments on Google when you say, search for a song, so on the right side you get some advertisment on where to buy that CD, etc.. but those advertisements can't get so much profit..
Another thing that comes to mind is that you have to pay google some fee to get your site to be on the first page of the search results, but i don't know if that is true...
So where does all that money come from?

Quote from Boris Lozac :

I always wondered this. Never quite understood how there is so much money involved in Google and YouTube(even before they were bought by Google).
I mean, google, a search engine... end user doesn't have to pay anything to search. YouTube, same, you don't have to pay anything to upload/download a movie...
So how come there are milions(bilions) of dollars involved here, where do they come from.
Ok, there are advertisments on Google when you say, search for a song, so on the right side you get some advertisment on where to buy that CD, etc.. but those advertisements can't get so much profit..
Another thing that comes to mind is that you have to pay google some fee to get your site to be on the first page of the search results, but i don't know if that is true...
So where does all that money come from?

Advertising!!

Its all about being recognised.

If Google own popular things like YouTube, then they are more well know so they will get more advertising offers over the companies that arn't well known and charge for their services...

..I guess.

Google is the worlds biggest ad company in the world - they run "Google AdSense" you often see on sites, and the "sponsored results" on Google cost a LOT believe me!

The "Sponsored Links" cost a hell of a lot (See attatchment)

My ex-boss was was paying around £20,000 a year to be at the top and some guy left to set up a rival company, and he was paying £10,000 and was third.

Think about how many companies use that.

EDIT: My old boss had 3 websites, all 3 with £20,000 chucked at them. Thats £70,000 from just 2 comapnies.

google makes it mone y by selling whats known simple as keywords


you buy them in the google auction ( ee.g if your site is a sim racing site you buy the rights to use sim and racing on there search engine ) you psaythem what you per click on your sites name , ofcourse now they give away mainly free advertising for you because the morepopular it gets the more mone yit Also makes from adverts


youtube makes its money from adverts

Quote from theirishnoob :

google makes it mone y by selling whats known simple as keywords


you buy them in the google auction ( ee.g if your site is a sim racing site you buy the rights to use sim and racing on there search engine ) you psaythem what you per click on your sites name , ofcourse now they give away mainly free advertising for you because the morepopular it gets the more mone yit Also makes from adverts

Um... I've never heard that, at all...

I'm more curious that how internet advertising can still work so well, especially concerning that nowadays every semi-nerd stage user has ad-blockers and stuff.

Quote from deggis :

I'm more curious that how internet advertising can still work so well, especially concerning that nowadays every semi-nerd stage user has ad-blockers and stuff.

You can't believe how many retards there are in Mid Western America who will click every single one of those "free ipod" adverts on youtube....

Quote from Jakg :

Google is the worlds biggest ad company in the world - they run "Google AdSense" you often see on sites, and the "sponsored results" on Google cost a LOT believe me!

Doesn't cost much if you get your optimization right. The closer your content is matched to the keywords you bid for the less you have to bid to win.

I got 300,000 impressions and over 200 clickthroughs for just £20. The first half of the period I hadn't optimized properly so it can be a lot cheaper. What you have to do is create a page for the keywords you intend to bid for. Make sure the words are in the url, page title, name, keywords and content and the bids you make can be far smaller.

Quote from deggis :

I'm more curious that how internet advertising can still work so well, especially concerning that nowadays every semi-nerd stage user has ad-blockers and stuff.

Semi-nerd users aren't the only Internet users, they're just a minority. And by the way, you wouldn't believe how many semi-nerd users have naive ideas and beliefs and how easily they dupe themselves and do something that even an ignorant but wise user would deem as stupid or superficial. They often forget to do their homework because they trust their self-proclaimed knowledge, and thus sometimes they fail miserably because they think they know.