Online Advertisements on Homepages of Websites: A Study

Abstract

®      Purpose: The purpose of this study is to study the online advertisements on the homepage of the informational portals like Yahoo and Rediff as contrast to the ecommerce sites where lot of research has already been conducted. Therefore, in order to study the layout of the website and the online advertisements appearing on the homepage in context to its layout, placement, size, duration, etc., the study was conducted.

®      Methodology: To conduct this exploratory study, content analysis was used as the method for analysing it. Two websites were selected for the comparison and studied for the period of one week on fixed parameters and then generalised features were analysed for the comparison.

®      Findings: The comparative study concluded that though both are informational websites but Yahoo homepage is more creative and aesthetic as it experiments more with the online advertisements. Banner ads are more extensively used on both the websites on the right side of the website. Yahoo also carries pop up and sponsored ads as compared to Rediff that follows restricted formats. Yahoo is designed on Fixed Sidebar layout whereas Rediff has headline and Gallery format.

®      Significance: The result will be beneficial for the marketers, consumers and designers to understand the type of online advertisements liked by the consumers. Also, the result will also prove to be beneficial for the marketers in order to understand which products are to be marketed online and on which websites.  In context to marketers and designers, the result will help to study which type of internet advertisements are most appealing by the netizens, should they be copy heavy or picture heavy, where they should be placed and many such related queries.