The Mountain View, California based search company said that along with its new country-specific site in Spain, Google.es, it also opened an advertising-sales office in Madrid to cater to marketers in that region. The company now operates in 21 countries.

According to a CNET News report, Google said that it has signed 150,000 active monthly advertisers in part because of its growing good name in Web search around the world and in part because of the attractive return on investment it offers to the advertisers.

"Google has been interested from day one in trying to serve the world's information to users. We're now starting to serve the world's advertisers," said Google vice president advertising Tim Armstrong.

Google's advertiser milestone eclipses the latest number from archival Overture Services, which Yahoo plans to acquire for $1.7 billion. In its financial report from July, Overture claimed 95,000 advertisers, inching closer to Google's 100,000 figure from July. The numbers race is just one area of fierce competition from the two companies, which both sell Web and commercial search services to Net operators globally, said the report.

In another example of the rivalry, Google entered in Spain one week after Overture set up shop in the country. Google launched a Web site and office in Spain with several major partners that display its Web ads. Those include Ya.com and Lycos Europe.

In addition, the company said that a version of its Google toolbar is now available for use in Spain.