4.1.2 Commercial advertisement and perception

Differences between organic and sponsored results

In general natural results are according to users more relevant than sponsored ones.

According to a study made on an American search engine user panel in 2004: (iProspect. (2004). Search Engine Users Attitudes 2004.)

Type of Search Result Selected

Most of search users are clicking on natural search results. It however appear that search engine users are in some cases finding paid results more relevant than normal ones:

Results relevancy according to users by search engine in 2004

According to a study made on American search engine users in 2005 (Fallows, D. (2005). Search Engine Users 2005.):

- 68% of users say that search engines are a fair and unbiased source of information;

- 38% of searchers are aware of a distinction between paid and unpaid results, 62% are not;

- 18% of searchers overall (47% of searchers who are aware of the distinction) say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not.

This study can be put in correlation with another one made in India in 2007 (Internet and Mobile Association of India. (2007). Search Engine Marketing 2007.) where Indian Internet users stated that:

Attitudes towards search engines in India

Information coming from links are more trustworthy for 60% of Indian users.

So even if it appears clear for the major part of Internet users that paid results are commercials there is still a confusion about it.

In the case of some search engines such as Baidu it appears that there is a confusion between the sponsored links and the natural ones. "Baidu merges its organic results with results from its paid listings service"(David Viney. (2008). Get to the Top on Google. p.210).

That kind of indexation can lead to strong data quality issues (cf. China Tech News.com. (2007). CCTV: Baidu Search Engine Fraud Exposed?.).

The most recent example is the "milk scandal" (cf. China Daily. (2008). Baidu cuts revenue forecast on ad scandal.) (Baidu accepted to high ranked unlicensed companies which were providing fake milk in exchange of money).

This emphasize that businesses and individuals have to be aware of how search engines are dealing with information processes.

According to the example given above such confusion between paid and natural results can be dangerous.