With some of their smaller competitors gaining some ground based upon letting advertisers know where their ads are being shown, Google (GOOG) has started looking at opening up more and offering clients information on where their ads are being shown. This has been a concern for companies that are branding and not knowing if their company is showing up next to objectionable content.
Once Google rolls out the new product, companies will be given data on where their ads have been appearing. The company is now in the early beta stage.
Most of this is in relationship to when companies buy ads across the network 
rather than on specific sites. At this time firms are only told how many clicks they get from their ads. Companies have been able to buy site-specific ads for a couple of years now.
While Google denies they're making these changes because of smaller companies gaining traction, they still have to respond to ensure that someone doesn't sneak up beneath them and make huge gains by offering something many companies have been asking for. Quigo is one such company that has been quietly growing using transparent and contextually targeted marketing of ads.
This could help Google though as a number of companies won't use them without knowing where the ads are being placed. The product is scheduled to launch in the second quarter of 2007.
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