Term paper and student essay services joined online hookers, gun dealers and computer hackers yesterday on a list of advertisers banned by Google, as the world’s largest search engine announced a digital stand against plagiarism.

Known as “paper mills,” academic paper-writing services will soon be forbidden from buying keyword terms through the Google AdWords program, effectively barring them from appearing in the “sponsored links” section of a

Google search-results page.

Google spokeswoman Diana Adair said the change will take effect “in the coming weeks.”

The move was applauded by educators, who said the expansion of the Internet has fueled an explosion of plagiarism.