Interesting Pay-Per-Click Snippet

Look for Ralph Nader soon?

[johnnydequino]

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- A majority of Internet users are unaware that some results from search engines include advertisers' links, according to research by Consumer WebWatch, funded by the publishers of Consumer Reports magazine. "This new study tells us when consumers find out about it, they feel betrayed," said James Guest, president of Consumers Union. He said many people believe search engines, like Google, are libraries where information is ordered and listed objectively. "They are more like telephone directories, where companies can pay to be listed," Guest said. A research firm monitored 17 savvy Web users who were unaware that some search engines are paid to list results, with all the participants saying the paid results were difficult to recognize as such.

[dwilson]

17 savvy Web users who were unaware that some search engines are paid to list results

I doubt that.

the paid results were difficult to recognize as such

On OV, there's nothing to set apart the paid links -- eventually SAVVY users realize they're ALL paid! But on Google, what do people think the words "sponsored listing" mean?

Welcome to the Western World "savvy" users!

[rogerd]

DWilson, never underestimate how oblivious users can be - even when the info is on the screen in front of their face. I have a content site that gets traffic for many, many keywords. Some are names of sites or organizations that we mention in our content. It's amazing how many web contact forms we get that go something like, "Dear WidgetWorld: I bought one of your widgets two years ago and it broke yesterday...". To anyone with half a brain, it would be clear that we are NOT WidgetWorld, as we have a big logo on every page that is nothing like WidgetWorld, our contact form repeats our company name in plain text, and the ONLY mention of WidgetWorld is on a discussion page where several people debated the quality of WidgetWorld products. Nevertheless, because we turned up in a search result for WidgetWorld, people blindly assume that we ARE WidgetWorld.

If users are incapable of making gross distinctions like this, I doubt if they will notice a "sponsored listing" flag next to a search result.

[webdiversity]

Then I think these users would fail the "savvy" test of differentiating between a sponsored listing and not.

And besides I don't really see 17 people as being a "majority of internet users" somehow.

Whatever happened to the FTC intervention on all this? Did they realise that it was hard to enforce globally?

[chiyo]

did i read that right? 17 users? total sample? maybe all recruited outside their optometrists, or havent been near the web since circa 1999. Really 17 users is not worth talking about.

[john316]

This isn't meant to fuel any fire but, I've seen numerous surfers assume that the top listings are the top listings.

I guess that wouldn't be too far of a stretch to imagine.

doh!

[juniperwasting]

I wonder if Savvy means they knew how to open IE in windows?

[dragonlady7]

Scary.

It was an interesting study-- I read the article a little while ago.
But they did say that 17 was hardly enough of a sampling to be statistically significant. Which is kind of annoying-- if you're going to publish a study like that, at least get a large enough sample size for it to be significant! I'm a little tired of statisticians. You can quote a statistic to support anything you like-- there will always be a way to interpret the data that you can find numbers to support. I've attended one to many events where the speaker throws statistics at you for 20 minutes and then spends an hour soapboxing about his or her interpretation of those statistics, as if they were some kind of absolute truth.

So I'd be interested to hear how many "savvy" (with the term actually somehow defined!) Web users out of, say 200, could figure out what "sponsored" meant.

[john316]

er...just how "savvy" do you have to be in order to use a search engine?

added> Has anyone here had to explain how to use a serch engine to anyone?

hmm...lets see; Type what you are looking for in the box and hit the search button. Wow...they are now savvy!

[rogerd]

Clearly the definition of "savvy" is rather fluid, as any savvy user (by my definition) would understand that "sponsored" equals "ad".

[john316]

I guess the whole issue will disappear when they are forced to use the word "advertisement".

It is what it is. Do suppliers sell sponsorships or ads?

[juniperwasting]

sponsorships or ads?

I think they can continue calling it sponsered, as the companies bidding on those "ads" are sponsering the SE's. Just a bit of tongue and cheek here, but a good lawyer might be able to press that issue.

Will

[rogerd]

I guess the whole issue will disappear when they are forced to use the word "advertisement".

I doubt it. Many surfers will still fail to distinguish between ads and search results.

As bizarre as this sounds, I have encountered quite a few people who use "catalogs" and "magazines" interchangeably. (Admittedly, magazines are working hard to blur these lines with "advertorial" content and other sneaky ads.) It seems like some people simply aren't programmed to distinguish content types and sources.