Google to expand ad targeting to a few hours

Google will no longer target ads on a query-by-query basis, and will instead use hours of search history to target ads to users when they use search keywords, the search giant announced in a blog post Wednesday. This means Google will store each query in order to display targeted ads related to that keyword hours later, on the search page or a site that uses Google ads.

"We've recently started to expand the use of the query words in referral URLs to a few hours so we can so we can continue to deliver more relevant ads," the blog post stated. "After a short period of time (a few hours) the query words are no longer used for the purposes of matching ads. Of course, users can continue to opt out of our advertising cookie at any time here."