Banner ads seemed to have gone the way of the Dodo bird. In essence these forms of advertising on the web were relegated to link exchange programs as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising came to dominance. PPC relies more heavily on target consumer activity and remains a no-frills, cost effective way to reach targeted consumers.
However, today we find Flash driven banner advertising that can be essentially a video that makes the advertising stand out.
Google has become involved in bringing banner ads back. What was once considered a dinosaur is now getting a second look as an enhanced form of PPC advertising.
No longer does the simple PPC advertising have to be the only option for online business.
The common problem with link exchange programs has been that businesses can only work with a comparatively small pool of participants. The price is right, but it never really provides the jump-start to a business that other Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies can produce.
In many cases link exchange has been a bit like throwing darts wearing a blindfold you never really know what your shooting at and even after youve let go of the dart you have...