Google brought its AdSense contextual advertising service to RSS content in a beta test launched on Wednesday.
The program for RSS feeds follows the AdSense model for Web sites and blogs, according to the Google Blog: “Advertisers have their ads placed in the most appropriate feed articles; publishers are paid for their original content; readers see relevant advertising.”
Acknowledging that business models for feeds have yet to solidify, the company posted a list of best practices for ad-supported RSS content. Google advised publishers to syndicate the full texts of articles, rather than just headlines and teasers, and to insert only a single ad at the end of the text.
Search rival Yahoo quietly began inserting ads in some feeds last November. Yahoo partnered with FeedBurner, a provider of syndication services for publishers, combining Yahoo’s contextual matching technology with FeedBurner’s posting and processing services.
Kanoodle, an online ad network, began serving ads into RSS feeds last summer. In February, it launched BrightAds RSS, a self-service advertising system designed to let small and medium-sized publishers include content-targeted sponsored links into their feeds.