Google is taking an unusual approach to its advertising business. The online company is testing printed advertisements in newspapers and magazines using a traditional classified format.

The ads are being used for Google's existing clients who normally use the Adwords system to put ads on the search engine results pages.

The company took out several pages in last months PC Magazine and Maximum PC to display the adverts which also included images.

Smart Money reports:

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told investors on the company's third-quarter conference call last month that "hundreds of other publications have expressed interest in participating" in the company's print-ad initiative.

Google has been seen as a threat, in particular, to newspapers' important classified-ads revenue.