Google reveals Oregon’s economic impact and advertisement revenue splits
By OSBA,

Earlier this week Google Inc. announced the amount of economic impact that Google had on each state in 2009. In Oregon, 28,500 advertisers and publishers benefitted to the tune of $510.5 million, either by placing their ads on Google or by placing Google advertisements on their site.  And 80 non-profits benefitted with $1.3 million donated by the search giant. 

Recently, for the first time, Google disclosed their revenue splits with search and content publishers. In a blog post on Monday, Google says it pays publishers 68% of the revenue Google collects from advertisers for content ads that appear on the publishers’ sites.  Google said it pays publishers 51% of revenue for search ads.  Previously Google had been unresponsive in requests to reveal it’s revenue splits. 

The disclosure of advertisement splits comes at a time when publishers and regulators are demanding more transparency.  Google has also been under fire in Italy in an antitrust suit, prompted by an Italian newspaper publishers’ claiming that Google is abusing their dominance.

Google says that revenue splits for its AdSense service have not changed since the service was introduced in 2003.  In comparison, the revenue splits are more generous than the 60% cut that Apple Inc. provides with the iAd advertisement service.

Some of Oregon’s 80 nonprofit donation recipients include CCI Enterprises, Mercy Corps, National Psoriasis Foundation, and Organic Materials Review Institute.  In comparison to Oregon’s $512 million, Google’s economic impact in Washington was $2.8 billion.  Google employs more than 600 people in Washington.