Ads paid by Google and Facebook to link to stories published on the web by others are now being offered by sites other than Google and Google’s own search results, according to a study by a team at Stanford University.
The results are likely to lead to increased competition for readers of such ads, said the study’s lead author, Daniel Kocher, a professor of computer science at Stanford.
The study was published in the journal PLoS One.
The Stanford team found that ads paid by sites like Facebook and Google to link directly to stories in Google’s search results are being offered on several sites, including Adwords, a Google product that lets users advertise on sites with a similar name to Google.
That’s a good thing, said Kochel, because ads on other sites can cost more.
But ads paid directly to links to a story by other sites could make a lot of sense.
It would make them easier for advertisers to find and get a better result, Koche said.
Facebook is also paying publishers directly for ads that are linked to their articles, Kontorion said.
That way, the publishers are getting a better return on their investment.
“This is a very important step forward,” Kontoreion said, “in making advertising more relevant and effective on the internet.”
The Stanford study found that Google and other search engines are increasingly relying on paid ads from other companies, such as Amazon, to make up the gap between the number of organic search results that reach the Google search results and the number that reach Google’s results.
That may make Google’s ads even more valuable to advertisers, Kuchel said.
Google has about $60 billion in annual revenue from Google ads, and the company has already taken steps to make them more useful to publishers.
In October, Google announced a partnership with a nonprofit called the Media Institute to provide free ads to media outlets that link to its search results.
“Our goal is to make Google search even more relevant to consumers and to promote more trustworthy journalism,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Google.
Facebook, too, has begun using paid ads to promote its own products.
In April, it began offering ads to publishers and news organizations that include the Google keyword in the title.
The company also began giving advertisers a direct link to articles that are about its products or services.
But in March, Facebook began using paid links to link from its search pages to other pages on other websites, including sites that host its own content.
That made it more difficult for advertisers and news publishers to link their ads directly to their own articles, Cook said.
“That’s one of the reasons that we’re continuing to work on ways to make the web even more useful for publishers,” he said.
A Google spokesperson said the company was focused on making the web more useful and better for users, including through improved search and sharing tools.
“The ads we are providing are not paid for, and are available to publishers directly through Google Ads,” the spokesperson said.
The Associated Press reported this story.
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