Google starts TV-style ads on Web

Advertisers have been eager to buy the relatively limited supply of spaces for online commercials at prices that equal and sometimes exceed the rates charged by major networks, as measured by cost per thousand viewers.

Google’s move expands the online advertising space to the network it has established for text and graphical ads—a group of sites whose number it will not disclose, though it is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Google’s announcement came a week after AOL said that it had acquired Lighteningcast, a company that sells video advertisements on about 150 sites, including Space.com and Nascar.com. Lighteningcast will be merged with AOL’s own Advertising.com unit, which mainly sells banner advertisements on other sites but is also getting into sales of video advertising.

Lighteningcast and other video advertising networks are focused on inserting commercials into video programming. The video ads that Google is placing, by contrast, will appear on conventional Web pages; users will see a single image, and the video will play only if they click a button.

Matt Wasserlauf, the chief executive of Broadband Enterprises, which sells video advertisements on 500 sites, said that major marketers prefer their commercials to be part of a stream of programming rather than be on Web pages.

‘‘No one will click to watch a Pampers ad,’’ he said. For example, he said, Procter & Gamble would rather ‘‘put Pampers on relevant or entertaining content.’’

Google says its system would bring video advertising into reach for small businesses.

‘‘A large percentage of video ads will come from small advertisers,’’ said Gokul Rajaram, a director of product management at Google. ‘‘A small resort owner in Maui probably already has video of their great beachfront property. Now they can put it in an ad and reach a qualified set of users.’’

Rajaram also suggested that large advertisers will be able to use the system to test different treatments for commercials they hope to run on television. ‘‘You can upload a video tonight and have it run tomorrow,’’ he said. —SAUL HANSELL