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Search juggernaut Google is expanding its reach with a new advertising service that delivers targeted ads and relevant sponsored links to partners' sites.

The company says that the new service will offer its more than 100,000 worldwide advertisers better click-through results by providing content-based advertising.

The program works in the same way as the company's AdWords program, which allows advertisers to bid for placement on sponsored listings that appear alongside search results, says Susan Wojcicki, director of product management at Google.

The company uses a technology similar to that of its search service to determine the content of a site and then serve up a relevant ad, Wojcicki says.

"This technology allows us to deliver the same precision we give to our search results to content pages...and it's all automated," she says.

Google executives say the charter participants in its new ad program include Knight Ridder Digital properties and HowStuffWorks.

Growing Popularity

In order for this technology to be useful, Google needed a big advertising network from which to draw ads, says Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management at Google. Now that the company boasts more than 100,000 advertisers, it has a wider range of choices for its content-based ad placement, he says.

Just a year ago Google had only a few thousand advertisers, he says. However, the search giant's popularity has resulted in a boom in its advertiser base, as well as in the amount of searches it performs every day, which has skyrocketed to 200 million.

The new ad services come as rival pay-for-placement company Overture Services works to extend its cache of products and services by buying up search technology providers AltaVista and Fast Search & Transfer's Internet business assets.

Rosenberg and Wojcicki downplay the idea that its new ad offerings make Google a more media-focused company, however, saying that its approach to search and advertising is the same.

"Our mission is to connect people with relevant information," Wojcicki says.