Google Releases Adsense for RSS Feeds

August 15th, 2008 - Jeffrey Henderson

After two months of testing internally Google finally enabled placing ads in RSS feeds through their AdSense platform. There ads were originally called Feedburner Ads before Google's acquisition of that company. The integration of RSS ads into the AdSense platform allows users to tap into the entire Feedburner network.

The RSS Feed Ads will allow all the same options as other AdSense options. As reported in the Google Operating System Blog:

The new AdSense for Feeds option lets you create a new ad unit that has a format automatically selected from 468×60 and 300×250. . . . You can choose if you want image ads, the ad frequency, the position (top or bottom of the post), the colors and a channel that tracks the ad performance.

While bloggers and other publishers with big RSS Subscriber bases celebrate this new revenue opportunity this largely untested advertising method still has a ways to go in proving itself as not only a good option for publishers but also an acceptable intrusion by the actual reader/clicker/consumers out there who may not want to see ads in their RSS reader.