Google has allowed religious groups to place messages about abortion on its search site.

The move follows a dispute between the Google search engine and religious anti-abortion group, the Christian Institute. In March Google would not let the organisation use Google Adwords to place an advert detailing its views on abortion.

It sued the search engine under the British Equality Act 2006 on the grounds that its advertising policy discriminated against Christian groups. After an out-of-court settlement, Google said it would now allow religious groups to advertise about abortion as long as they were “in a factual and campaigning way".

Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, said: "This is an important issue of free speech and religious liberty and we are very pleased with Google’s constructive response to this matter."

The ad was initially rejected by Google on the grounds of “inappropriate content”. It said while it did allow non-religious sites to place adverts on the subject of abortion, it had a policy of not advertising sites that combined “abortion and religion-related content”.

The Institute accused Google of having a "warped value system" for blocking Christian adverts, while continuing to allow adverts created by abortion clinics, pro-choice sites and companies that sell weapons.

The settlement was welcomed by the Institute. Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, said: "This is an important issue of free speech and religious liberty and we are very pleased with Google’s constructive response to this matter.

A representative for Google said: "The issue of abortion is an emotive subject and Google does not take a particular side.

"Over the last few months we have been reviewing our abortion ads policy in order to make sure it was fair, up-to-date and consistent with local customs and practices.”

This means that when users now type the word "abortion" into the search engine, they will see adverts with details of abortion clinics and support groups, and links to religious groups which may oppose abortion.

It will also include adverts with the wording "UK Abortion law. Key views and news on abortion law from The Christian Institute."

This is the wording that the Institute had originally wanted to pay Google to appear. It said it was "delighted" to have won the battle.