Google is now providing a new, additional demographic bidding feature for its AdWords advertisers. According to a Google AdWords announcement, this new and dynamic feature allows advertisers to modify their bids as well as restrict their ads’ visibility on the basis of the gender and age of the users who happen to see the ads on participating sites within the Google content network.

This feature works on contextual or placement targeting with both CPC as well as CPM bidding. Google began inviting selected advertisers in January for testing out the new demographic bidding feature. Only some sites within its content network will provide demographic bidding, according to media reports. These comprise leading social networking sites, such as myspace.com, blackplanet.com and friendster.com, apart from a few other web sites, which ask users to mention their gender and age, Google stated. It already provides demographic site selection. This feature allows advertisers to identify sites, which attract specific audiences.

Yahoo! has also been offering a demographic targeting feature as part of its ‘display advertising offering’ for a while now, stated the director of corporate communications, Kristen Wareham. She added: “Though this feature is something we are considering to extend into our search marketing offering, there isn’t anything concrete to announce at this time.”