Google is considering offering premium subscription services as a way of boosting its revenues.

Niche searches of specialist publications, hi-tech industries and for medical information targeted at enterprise and academic clients are among the options on the table for the popular search engine firm, CNET (http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7661450.html?tag=mn_hd) reports, citing unnamed sources at the firm.

Content aggregation sites, such as NewsNow.co.uk, have sold subscription services, but other search engines (such as AltaVista and Lycos) have adopted a "pay-for-placement" route, which Google has steered clear of.

Google, which has said it operates at a profit (although as a privately-held firm it doesn't publish financial results), has two main revenue sources: licence fees from its search technology (130 paying customers, including Yahoo!); and advertising.

Advertisements on Google, which doesn't feature banner ads, are simple text links and contextualised with user searches. This gives four to five times better click-through rates, the firm claims. ®

Related Stories

Google is in the black (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20863.html)
More great search engines you should check out (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20671.html)
Is this the rival to Google? (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20614.html)
Google preps $250m IPO (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/19939.html)
Google Usenetters get posting rights (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/19070.html)
Ex-Novell CEO becomes chairman of Google (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/17906.html)