Search users confused by paid listings
24 January 2005
One in six internet search engines users are still unable to tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements, a recent survey reveals.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that web users in the United States are generally naive about how search engines work, with just a third of those surveyed realising that there are two kinds of search results.
All the major search-engine companies make money by running small text ads adjacent to their unpaid search results. Unpaid search results are generally ranked by popularity and relevance to what the user is looking for, but placement of paid results, while matched with search queries, is based on advertising fees and how often users click on the ads.
Researcher Deborah Fallows said: "When you think of how people watch television, certainly everybody can tell a commercial ad from a program, and I would guess most people could tell an infomercial. So it surprises me that that kind of distinction doesn't carry over on the internet.'
Google marks paid adverts as "sponsored links," Yahoo lists them "sponsor results" and Microsoft MSN uses the term "sponsored sites", placing adverts to the right and on top of search results.
The survey of 2,200 adults also found that just a third of internet searchers said they "couldn't live without search engines", while 17 per cent said they would not care if they suddenly lost access to search tools from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask Jeeves.
The vast majority of internet users surveyed (87 per cent) replied that they were happy with the results they received from search engines. Those most reliant on search engines tend to be men, and people who are younger, better educated and more experienced with the internet, Pew revealed.
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