In a continuing push to monetize the site, Google will begin selling space to advertisers on YouTube search results pages, reports MediaBuyerPlanner.

Advertisers can bid to promote themselves on YouTube Sponsored Videos. Ads will appear on the right-hand side of YouTube search results with a small image and some text, writes The New York Times.

Following Yahoo and Google, YouTube had the third-highest number of searches conducted of any web property in the month of September.

Like Google AdWords, advertisers can set a maximum price per click and are charged each time a viewer clicks on the ad. How high the ad appears within the results depends on a number of elements, including how much the advertiser is willing to pay per click, and how much interest the message has generated in the past.

Product manager Matthew Liu of YouTube pointed out some clips that may not rank high in the main YouTube results could appear on the first page as a sponsored listing.

"This is a powerful way for users and advertisers to get discovered," said YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley in the following video message. "And anyone will be able to promote and sponsor videos in a relevant and democratic way."

Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube two years ago, and has been attempting to harness a viable ad model on the site ever since. It began by showing ads within videos, then added e-commerce elements to select music videos last month.

YouTube also hopes to appeal to a broader range of advertisers by expanding beyond home-made amateur vids. Earlier this week, the site announced that MGM was making some full-length movies available via a couple of channels on the site, while CBS began offering full shows on YouTube last month.

In October, director Wayne Wang debuted a full-length film on the video site.