Google is probably one of the most popular starting point on the web for millions of web users. It is synonymous with searching the web. And it is probably still the simplest webpage on the internet. But why is there no advertising on the Google front page.

Google is generating millions of dollars of advertising revenue. I just checked the second quarter results of Google for 2006

“Google Network Revenues – Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $997 million, or 41% of total revenues. This is a 58% increase over network revenues of $630 million generated in the second quarter of 2005 and a 7% increase over first quarter 2006 revenues of $928 million.”

They can easily make advertising history by charging the highest ever advertising price charged for a single ad on the front page and corporates will be rushing for the premium advertising space. Just imagine how much more they could earn then… Yahoo and MSN, its biggest competitors run lots of ads on their front page.

Many advertisers (e.g. on Feedburner) are offering routine $7-$10 CPM ads (CPM = cost per 1000 impressions) for Tech sites, and much higher for premium publishers. With millions of Google front page views, just imagine the amount of revenue and clicks a single ad can generate on the neat, full of whitespace google page. Can anyone afford an ad on the Google homepage? Many rich corporates can easily dig out any amount of cash for the publicity and site traffic it will generate.

Probably it is Google’s company policy to keep advertising off the main page. Earlier this year, Fox news had reported that advertisements appeared on the home page of a Google.by site and “ended the company’s nearly decade-long tradition of an ad-free front page”. Later it was revealed that the site google.by, suggestive of Google Belarus, was not owned by Google.

What price would you pay to advertise on the Google.com front page…