The Virtual Earth blog wrote about how Live Search Maps can have sponsored ads, as icons or logos, embedded directly in the local results. This is a feature Google had at least since August 2006 and Google Earth had since February 2007. I am not sure how long Live Search Maps had these feature, but I now know they do.

To see these highlighted maps listings in Live Search Maps, conduct a search for Hotels In San Diego, CA in Live Maps and you will see this:

Chris Pendleton of Microsoft said that the only way to get ads in Live Maps is to contact the Virtual Earth Licensing Group at maplic AT microsoft.com or to email him. I guess there is no way to do this within their adCenter ad product?

Again, Live Search Maps ads is brand new to me and I assume most advertisers are unaware of it, since it seems like it is not easy (i.e., automated via adCenter) to get your ads on the maps.

Related Topics: Microsoft: adCenter | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz