Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing on websites or other media, such as content displayed in mobile or desktop browsers, and is usually related to a certain topic.

Contextual advertising works when webmasters order Java code from companies such as Google AdWords that will provide them with advertisements that pertain to the topic of their web pages. Once this code is entered into the HTML of the web page, each time the page is viewed, an advertisement, usually a banner ad, will appear on the page.