Up until this month advertisers selling beer online or promoting the sale and/or consumption of beer on their website were banned from using paid search ads to promote their products. Google has recently decided to lift that ban, allowing purveyors of beer the same opportunities that wine and champagne distributors have enjoyed up to this point.
While Google has not commented on this change, analysts at Search Engine Land believe that Google is trying to increase their ad revenues during tough financial times.
Although beer ads have been given the go-ahead, hard alcohol and liqueurs remain Restricted Products and “cannot be promoted in ad text or be the purpose of your site” (occupying a significant portion of the site), according to the Google AdWords policy page.
It is unknown whether Google will continue to update it’s paid search policies, but if current economic trends continue, it appears very plausible that Google will loosen their policies in order to gain additional revenue.
– Bill Holmes
