AdWords is Google’s advertising business.

For this blog , we’ll just look at Google’s pay per click search page activities to dig a little deeper and answer the “what is Google AdWords” question.

Like millions of people before you, you go to the Google search engine to get information. You type in your search query and there, along with Google’s organic search results (and maps and news etc) are ads – as indicated by the little yellow ‘Ad’ box.

If you clicked one of those ads, for example, the bottom left Singapore Airlines ad, a number of things will happen.

1. Singapore Airlines, the Google AdWords advertiser, will be charged an amount known as the cost per click (the actual amount is confidential to the advertiser).
   
2. You, the searcher, will be taken to a page on the Singapore Airlines website.
   
3. Google, for matching your need for information (getting to London) and the advertiser’s product (Singapore Airlines flight to London), will be rewarded with the value of cost per click above being paid into their bank account.
   

AdWords is big business. There are over one million advertisers. The AdWords advertising platform also includes the Google Display Network, YouTube, Google Play Store….  In the second quarter of 2015, Google revenues were $17.7 billion.  The majority of that is from AdWords and no matter how that number is cut, it’s a lot of clicks on ads.

So that is AdWords and the science in AdWords is to make sure it’s your ad that gets clicked for the least possible cost.