A Google team is in Dubai, and has met with advertising agencies/media buyers and clients in the UAE to outline its vision for the Middle East and explain the business benefits of the AdWords internet advertising system.

Mohammad Gawdat, Google's managing director for emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa explained that broadband internet penetration is very much on the rise and so is search, stating that Google itself recorded an impressive increase in search queries of 77% between Q2 of 2006 and Q2 this year.

"We're talking about what's in it for a small or medium sized company, to be able to advertise on such a small budget to such a highly targeted customer base," Gawdat elaborated. "How for example we can help a travel company in Dubai to advertise better to customers in the UK."

The Google AdWords system allows businesses of any size to create contextual, text-based advertisements that then appear in the sponsored link sections of Google search result pages and, if required, also on Google's partner engines and content sites.

AdWords' Pay Per Click (PPC) model sees customers agree a PPC sum, which they pay when a web surfer ‘clicks' on one of their keyword-based adverts (driving the surfer to their own website). According to Gawdat, less than 1% of the ad spend today in the MEA region is spent online.

Google is initially basing three members of staff in Dubai. This team is in the process of setting up an office here, led by Gawdat.

Arabic language products and services are a key focus for Google, Gawdat added. "Arabic is definitely a focus for us; it's key in this region obviously, and Eric Schmidt himself (Google's chairman and CEO), has confirmed that it's a key area."

"There are 350 million people in the region we need to serve better," Gawdat continued. "We're not interested in hiring sales people; we're interested in helping the early customers that want to jump in. We'll have people on the ground to help those customers yes, but the main mission is to get it right. We want to make our products are even better, and with them serve more peoples' needs."

Read more here.