Over the past several years, there has been much discussion about user preferences regarding click-through rates for the organic search results and the paid results (eg Adwords).
Recently, in discussing the advantages and disadvantages associated with each class of results, we decided to dig a bit deeper into the user bias against paid results, to understand: 1) the extent of user bias regarding “sponsored links” and organic results; and 2) if such a bias is dependent on the type of search (eg informational, product search, location-based search) being conducted.
While googling to get more data on this, the most common article that came up was by Scott Buresh, CEO of Medium Blue, an SEO company, entitled “Organic SEO or Pay-Per-Click Advertising – Which Should You Choose?” As the CEO of an SEO company, one would expect he’d prejudice working on your organic SEO rather than relying on PPC (eg Adwords) to increase traffic, and he does.
Study after study indicates people are less likely to click on paid search ads rather than on results from organic search engine optimization. For example, one study found that search users are up to six times more likely to click on the first few organic results than they are to choose any of the paid results, while an eye tracking study showed that 50 percent of users begin their search by scanning the top organic results. Other studies have shown that only 30 percent of search engine users click on paid listings, leaving an overwhelming 70 percent who are clicking the organic listings. And a 2003 study found that 85 percent of searchers report clicking on paid links in less than 40 percent of all of their searches, and 78 percent of all respondents claim that they found the information they we searching for through sponsored links just 40 percent of the time.
Interestingly, this same article turns up 192 times when googling: “organic seo or pay-per-click advertising” + buresh – so it’s no wonder his findings have been widely quoted and accepted. (And it’s interesting that Google serves up this article, reproduced on many websites, multiple times on the same SERP — duplicate content, anyone?)
However, suspecting that Buresh’s results tell only half the story, that the type of search is key to how users interact with search results, I sought out more detailed findings. I know that if I’m searching for information about something, I don’t even glance at the sponsored results, relying on the more relevance-based organic results. However, if I’m searching for a product or service, I will usually scan the paid results, although I still tend to look at the organic results first.
We have developed a suite of Hawaii-related pages and are trying to solicit advertising on these pages, targeting Adwords advertisers, with the pitch that they’re missing a significant portion of searchers by relying solely on their Adwords ads. Many of our pages are coming up on Google’s page 1 SERP, and we’ve been looking for recent and reliable research that takes a deeper look at these user patterns.
Bernard J. Jansen’s Study – December 2006
The most recent, detailed and authoritative article we found was published in December 2006 in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, entitled “An Examination of Searcher’s Perceptions of Nonsponsored and Sponsored Links During Ecommerce Web Searching” (PDF) by Bernard J. (“Jim”) Jansen, Pennsylvania State University. In this paper, Mr. Jansen, of Penn State College of Informational Sciences and Technology, reports the findings of a study on the behavior and responses of internet search engine users towards sponsored and organic search results in ecommerce searches.
The results of the study indicate that there is a strong preference for nonsponsored links, with searchers viewing these results first more than 82% of the time. Searching self-efficacy and experience does not increase the likelihood of viewing sponsored links, and the order of the result listing does not appear to affect searcher evaluation of sponsored links. (p.1)
According to Jansen, it all boils down to whether or not users perceive Sponsored Links as “relevant” to their search inquiries. He sites a number of previous studies which are the ones that likely inform the various opinions found online. For example:
Hotchkiss, Garrison, and Jensen (2004) where the 425 respondents “overwhelmingly choose links offering sources of trusted, unbiased information. More than 77% of participants also favored organic links more than the sponsored links. Even in an ecommerce-like scenario, survey respondents would still choose organic over sponsored links.” (p.4)
Brooks (2004a) studied the influence of ranking on click-throughs, how near the top on either the organic of sponsored links were, reporting that whether organic or paid, “[T]he higher the link’s placement in the results listing, the more likely a searcher is to select it. They also noted a “20 to 30% drop in click through.” And in a related study (Brooks 2004b), it was reported that “the conversion rate (i.e., customers who actually buy something) drops nearly 90% between the 1st and 10th positions.” (p.4)
Interestingly, The Pew Internet and American Life Project (Fallows, 2005) “reported that searchers trust the search engines that they use, but they do not understand how these search engines rank and present links. Only 38% of searchers reported awareness of the distinction between sponsored results and organic links. Less than 17% report that they always can tell which results are sponsored and which are organic.” (p.4)
Although acknowledging these earlier studies, Jansen observes that there were insufficient controls for quality of the presented SERPs (“Search Engine Results Pages”), and in his study he takes basically the same link content and presents it in either the organic results or the paid results to control for quality.
One of the questions Jansen sought to answer was, “Does the type of e-commerce query affect searchers’ bias for/against sponsored results?” He found that in only 27% of the participants “viewed only the organic listings while 73% [...] viewed both the organic and sponsored results. No searcher viewed only the sponsored links.”
Other findings:
- “participants rated 52% of the organic listings as relevant compared to only 42% of the sponsored listings” (p.7);
- “When using a Web search engine for e-commerce searching, searchers will evaluate organic links as more relevant than sponsored links.” (p.7);
- “The major reason for not examining sponsored links was lack of trust.” (p.8);
- “Summary ["description" meta tag] (42%) and Title [tag] (41%) were the primary bases that searchers used to determine if an organic link was relevant. Title (60%) was the primary basis for determining that an organic result was not relevant. This was the same finding as that for sponsored links.” (p.8);
- “If the e-commerce query is general, the searcher will be equally likely to view either organic or sponsored links.” (p.9);
- “If the e-commerce query is location specific, the searcher will be less likely to view a sponsored link.” (p.9);
- “The participants viewed more sponsored links for brand-specific queries than for general or location queries. [...] If the e-commerce query is brand specific, the searcher will be more likely to view a sponsored link.” (p.9);
- “If the e-commerce query is location specific, the searcher will be less likely to view a sponsored link.” (p.9)
Jansen acknowledges the bias paid results have yet to overcome: “It appears that sponsored links are currently reaching only about 20 to 25% of the Web searcher population, based on data from this study.” (p.10)
The bottom line is that businesses should not rely solely on one or the other, organic or paid. Focusing solely on paid search engine advertising, rather than organic SEO, essentially removes more than 50% of potential customers/clients. Although, this differential between organic and paid results does vary depending on the type of search, there appears to be a consistent bias for organic results and against paid results.
A SearchEngineWatch.com report on an early 2006 Search Engine Strategies conference states: “According to the December 2005 SEMPO/Intellisurvey report, 83% of online dollars are spent on paid placement and only 11.2% is spent on organic search. Contrast that with the findings from the iProspect study that show 61% of internet searches think natural listings are more relevant.”
In the same SEW report (quoting Geoff Ramsey), according to a 2005 MarketingSherpa report, “organic SEO gets a higher conversion rate than does sponsored search.” The conclusion? “Advertisers should be spending more time, effort, and money towards improving their natural search results.”
There does appear to be a disconnect here.
In a follow-up, I will discuss a report by Enquiro entitled “Into the Mind of a Searcher,” which has some interesting data.
Resources:
“Organic SEO or Pay-Per-Click Advertising – Which Should You Choose? – Scott Buresh
“An Examination of Searcher’s Perceptions of Nonsponsored and Sponsored Links During Ecommerce Web Searching” (PDF) by Bernard J. Jansen, Pennsylvania State University
Searchonomics: Search Statistics Made Fun – Christine Churchill, April 26, 2006, Search Engine Watch
