The $300 million in advertising being provided to AOL can be spent on traditional text ads or on these new experimental formats, the executives close to the talks said; AOL will have to bid on the advertisements in Google's auction and will be charged out of the $300 million allotment.

One format being discussed is a box, which may include a photograph and a logo, that would appear on the main search results pages toward the bottom of the advertisements in the right-hand column. Traditional banner ads may appear on Google Image Search and the Froogle shopping site, which already include many photographs, an executive involved said. No advertising is contemplated for the Google home page.

In addition to the $300 million in advertising, Google has agreed to help put content from AOL on other parts of its site as well. Google, for example, will look for content and services from AOL to include in a feature it calls One Box, which puts very specific links and content above regular results for certain search topics, an executive involved in the negotiations said.