Google extends reach into mobile apps with new ad feature

San Francisco: Google Inc will allow marketers to run online ads that send consumers to a page directly inside a mobile app, furthering the Internet company's effort to extend its multibillion-dollar advertising business to smartphones.

The new advertising feature helps Google bridge the gap between the traditional public Web pages that have long underpinned its search business and the increasing number of standalone, mobile apps popular with consumers. Mobile apps, which are dedicated to everything from restaurant reviews to online games, have typically been walled off and difficult for Google to integrate into its search engine results.

The new feature will be available in the next few months and will initially appear only on smartphones that run on Google's Android software.

Google, generates the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. But its ad rates, like those of other Internet companies, have been under pressure as more consumers access its online services on small-screened mobile devices, where advertising rates are lower than on PCs.