In an era of spam, ad blocking, and privacy concerns, it’s not surprising that a large portion of Internet users see internet advertisements as infernal creations. A lot of carefully crafted websites get ruined by cheesy banners and some others completely block you from viewing the content that you want. Still others make you wait before you can consume. I’m looking at you, Forbes!

But online ads are a fundamental part of the internet, and it’s a significant portion of the market, whether we like it or not. In 2014, online advertising generated $49.5 billion. Popular YouTubers like Pewdiepie make millions from ads, and many small blogs generate significant revenue from ads as well. That said, the way online advertising makes money has significantly changed from the Internet’s inception. In the graph below, you can see how advertising revenue has changed from the year 2000 to 2014.

In the year 2000, when the Internet was a spry little thing with untapped potential, 48% percent of advertising was display ads. As you probably know, display ads are large pictures, or banners that are meant to draw your attention for you to click on or view. Now that most people are familiar with the way the internet works, not as many people click on display ads (or get tricked into clicking on them rather) or they don’t even give view impressions because of popular software programs like Adblock—which has proliferated through browsers everywhere. Some websites even have pleas to viewers to turn it off, so they can generate more revenue. Some analysts still think display ads are effective even without clicks (not so much without views of course), and they still hold 21% of the total advertisement revenue.

Since 2000, we have seen a gradual decrease in the revenue generated from display ads into keyword search revenue. In 2000, 1% of ad revenue was generated from keyword search, while, in 2014 keyword search is the most dominant form of ad revenue with 38% of the market. Keyword search and display ads have changed spots. In 2014, display ads generated around $7.9 billion and keyword search generated around $18 billion.

There have also been huge shifts in advertising for mobile, but not so much for video. Initially, when advertising on the internet was starting out, there wasn’t any videos or mobile devices to generate revenue. Each year since 2000 there has been 1% annual increases in video revenue, but since 2011, video revenue growth has stagnated from only a 2% increase, while mobile has continued to increase from 5% in 2011 to 25% in 2014. This may be in part due to the huge rise of consumer use of smartphones and tablets—but video sources have remain mostly unchanged. YouTube has grown, but other video streaming services like Twitch have also grown which often use other means of revenue like subscription services.

Other means of advertisement revenue have shrunk so much they are now in the background. Classifieds hold a larger portion at 5% which is a significant decrease from 18% in 2006. Lead generation ads are smaller at 4% in 2014 which was at a high of 8% in 2006. Rich media ads have stabilized at a low 3% compared to a 10% revenue in 2004. Sponsorship advertising has also decreased from slowly to 2% from 8% in 2004.

It’ll be interesting to see how advertising on the internet continues to shift with the advent of things like AdBlock, and user media consumption. Already, in some ways, the gaming industry has taken a huge hit in quality, with mobile ads moving the market from buy to play to free to play. Games like Clash of Clans, which are free to play, generate more money than most other mobile games. That said, there are opportunities otherwise not presented before with these types of models. It lets users try out games instead of investing their capital, and they pay by impressions. Speaking of impressions, you probably don’t need me to remind you of Facebook--one of the biggest internet tech companies there is. Ads, ads, and more ads! They are here to stay. But the question is: What will they become?

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Sources: Table 1