I’ve noticed Google starting to advertise more things on their homepage over the last year. No, I’ve never seen them using Adsense or third party ad banners, but check out the screenshot below. This morning my friend mentioned seeing this too and said: “what’s with the google toolbar commercial on the google home page?”

Notice how the toolbar screenshot is wider than the Google search form?

In the beginning Google used the area beneath the search form mostly for text links to Google products and/or services or some good cause, but lately it’s ads for their toolbar like the one above sized and positioned more significantly than their search form.

This is their home page and they can do whatever they want, of course, but considering the source it is an odd change of philosphy for them. It’s not the Google way, if you will. They have treated their intentionally simplistic home page like sacred ground in the past, heralding how clean their homepage is from noise. This wide toolbar ad, even for their own product goes against the grain.

I wonder if they are seeing less people interested in downloading/using their toolbar so they feel the need to push it here more? I know I stopped using that thing months ago. Lord knows how many clicks something on the Google homepage receives, but it has to be a bunch.

Note: you won’t see this stuff if you are logged in and using the personalized account settings, so logout to view.

Is this a sign that someday we may see Google putting Adsense or running even bigger advertisements on their homepage?

• Referral fees for Adsense and Firefox with Google Toolbar
• MSN Toolbar beta released
• Skype toolbar beta unimpressive so far
• Adsense Webinar scheduled for Tuesday 8-2-2005 at 5pm PST
• MSN Toolbar Suite Beta quick thoughts
• Google toolbar will be your Valentine