Google Gets Involved in Mother Russia's Business

Google announced the upcoming acquisition of one of the most conspicuous contextual advertising companies in Russia. Begun, a property of Rambler Media, will become part of Google's advertising business most probably starting with September. By that time, the American company will have to pay a total of $140 million in cash, the equivalent of the entire Begun.

The Russian company is extremely popular in this country, having more than 40,000 advertisers. The advertising services cover over 143,000 Russian language sites, which only makes buying 100% of Begun a very lucrative deal for Google.

"This agreement illustrates our commitment to investing in Russia, where online advertising is currently experiencing rapid growth. We are very excited about the opportunity to deliver more relevant search and ads to users and provide advertisers and publishers with better advertising technology to help them succeed in their own businesses," said Mohammad Gawdat, Managing Director Emerging Markets at Google. He added that Google's technologies would only be like the icing on the cake, as the advertising network of Begun was already on safe ground.

The agreement will help the company develop vertical search technologies and create some new entertainment media services, as Mark Opzoomer, Chief Executive Officer of Rambler Media, explains. Also, Russian users will be shown a greater amount of more relevant ads, as he forecasts. At the same time, marketers will have more websites to choose from when trying to display their ads and, hence, a wider audience.

It seems like the new agreement is profitable for everyone involved. The only thing that remains to be seen is how Google will profit from the possibilities of the Russian market, since the company's strategy regarding advertising now seems to be that "less is more." The quality of ads should prevail, as far as Google is concerned, over their quantity. If the Russian deal keeps to the same conducting rule, it is very likely that the number of ads displayed to the users will be even smaller than what they're getting right now.