Jun 10, 2011 08:40 GMT  ·  By

Google is looking to make another big advertising deal and is said to be very close to agreeing to buy Admeld, an online advertising company which focuses on big publishers trying to make the most of their inventory. Google is willing to pay $400 million for the company, according to TechCrunch and several other reports, though none of the companies involved are commenting on the news.

The deal would bolster Google's standing in an area of the digital ad landscape that it doesn't quite cover yet. However, any advertising deal, especially one this big will likely get a lot of attention from regulators.

Especially since the startup is focused on display ads, a segment Google has recently started to dominate as well, the deal may get a long review and may even be blocked. That said, Google appears to be confident it can get approval.

Admeld works with large websites to optimize their ad revenue, it handles the ad inventory and works with several ad networks to get the best price at any given time.

Google has been very focused on display ads for the past few years and the company believes that the market is still small compared to its potential. It struggled for quite a while, but Google has finally gotten its DoubleClick line of products to generate significant revenue.

But Google has always focused on smaller publishers and self-serve services, or at least it's been more successful with that segment. Having a direct relationship and a product to offer to large websites could bolster its business in that area of the online ad market.

It will also enable Google to offer something that is publisher-oriented rather than advertiser-oriented like it's been doing so far. Google has been beefing up its display ad business in the past couple of years with several related acquisitions.

However, Google's AdMob acquisition spent months in waiting as government regulators poured over the details before finally getting approved, and this was for a company in mobile advertising, a space which Google didn't dominate, especially because it was still in its early days. That is hardly true for display ads.