Google unveils YouTube for Adsense

Google has announced a new way for web publishers to display YouTube videos in widgets on their sites, together with Adsense ads that are contextually targeted to the video and to the content on the site.

YouTube is the world’s largest video site, while Adsense is the world’s largest online contextual advertising network. Google will split revenue with both web site providers and video creators.

The hope is that pairing these two properties will create a significant, new way for Google and its partners to make money from embedded videos.

Questions remain, however, about how well Google can match ads with videos and web sites, as Adsense already often delivers ads that are poor matches with sites’ content.

Videos will only be available from YouTube video creators who have agreed to have their works distributed through Adsense.

The ad formats include banners outside the video frame as well as in-frame overlays.

A breakthrough for video creators and web publishers, or a “lame scramble” to justify Google’s purchase of YouTube last year? Mathew Ingram has a good wrap-up of that question here.