Google users may soon begin to see some heretofore rarely seen sights: not merely overhead views of the Kremlin, but ads with actual logos and graphics instead of plain text - a change prompted by Google's recent negotiations with AOL, according to the New York Times, which cites two executives close to those talks. In addition to paying $1 billion to buy a five percent stake in AOL, Google will give $300 million worth of advertising to AOL on Google websites, including graphical ad units, which would also be made available to other advertisers.

AOL will bid on the advertisements in Google's auction and will be charged out of its $300 million allotment.

Various ad formats are being considered, including a box that appears on the bottom right of the search results page, traditional banners on image search and on Froogle (which already has graphical ads), and content in Google's One Box program.

Google, as it has done with others, will provide search optimization advice to AOL, but a Google spokeswoman told the Times that no deals that Google might be contemplating would allow search results to favor one company over another.

Google's plans to place ads that containing graphics on Google sites (though not on the homepage) were apparently precipitated by the AOL talks, with Time Warner pressing to have Google users go to AOL pages as part of its effort to replace revenue from AOL's declining subscription business with ad revenue from its recently launched free portal and sites.