Contextual advertising means that ads which appear on a web page are related to its content, as determined by a spider (or robot) which scans the page and sends instructions to the advertising program about what ads to serve. This means that if your page is about fishing, you’ll get ads related to fishing, such as fishing gear, baits or hooks. If the program has a good technology of content scanning and a broad range of advertisers, then the ads appearing on a web page will be very targeted, and readers will be interested in them. When a visitor clicks an ad, you are paid a certain amount of money, which depends on the advertiser’s bid, and which can be between $0.01 for less competitive niches, and even tens of US dollars for the niches with lots of major players.

Advantages of contextual advertising

Drawbacks of contextual advertising

List of contextual advertising programs

Google AdSense: the most known and widespread contextual pay-per-click advertising program. I’ve been using AdSense since 2006, and I can say that they are trustful, and they pay as promised in their terms of service. You have to make at least $100 before they’d issue a payment. Yahoo Publisher Network: in order to be accepted, you need to have a valid US Social Security or Tax ID number, and your website must be predominantly in English and targeted at a US user base. The payment threshold is also $100

Miva Monetization Center AdSonar Adify AdBrite ShoppingAds: not exactly a contextual ads service, but you have the possibility to choose keywords for your ads block, so it will display only ads related to whatever you choose. All Non-US traffic will always see CPA (Cost-Per-Action) ads, regardless of your campaign configuration. The US visitors will see Cost-Per-Click (CPC) ads.