AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google's text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Image ads can be one of several different Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes.

Google's AdWords division is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.^[1].

Pay-Per-Click advertisements (PPC)

Advertisers specify the words that should trigger their ads and the maximum amount they are willing to pay per click. When a user searches Google's search engine on www.google.com (or the relevant local/national google server [e.g. www.google.fr for France]), adverts (also known as creatives by Google) for relevant words are shown as "sponsored links" on the right side of the screen, and sometimes above the main search results.

The ordering of the paid listings depends on other advertisers' bids (PPC) and the "quality score" of all ads shown for a given search. The quality score is calculated by historical click-through rates and the relevance of an advertiser's ad text and keywords[1], as determined by Google. The quality score is also used by Google to set the minimum bids for an advertiser's keywords.^[2]. The precise formula and meaning of relevance and its definition is in part secret to Google and whose parameters can be dynamically changed.

The auction mechanism that determines the order of the ads has been called a "generalized second price" auction. It is a variation of the Vickrey auction.