Google is going to start putting ads in its app store

If you're an Android owner, you might start seeing ads in Google's app store soon.

The company is going to start testing out search ads in the Google Play store. That means that when you search for a kind of app - like "travel" or "coupon" - the top result could be a sponsored suggestion that a developer paid for.

"Search ads on Google Play will enable developers to drive more awareness of their apps and provide consumers new ways to discover apps that they otherwise might have missed," the company writes in a blog post.

In the next several weeks, a limited set of users will start seeing ads from a select group of advertisers. Google will test out the ads for a few month and look at the results and feedback before deciding on an expansion plan.

Selling ads on Google Play is a big opportunity for Google. The company makes billions of dollars a year from search advertising on web search and YouTube - adding Google Play would just sweeten the pot. Product chief Sundar Pichai told Forbes that the company wants to capitalize on the app store's growing momentum. As investors and anlysts panic about how Google's revenue growth is slowing because it can't charge as much for mobile ad clicks as desktop ad clicks, this news offers another avenue for mobile monetization.

More than 1 billion people around the world currently use the Android operating system.

The company also reported it's paid more than $7 billion to developers this year. Apple, which does not have ads in its App Store, paid developers $10 billion.