Organic traffic increases inline with increase in PPC traffic

[Jaxson_78]

Has anyone ever noticed an increase in traffic through organic listings when they increase their PPC spend in Adwords? I have noticed this several times. When we increase our positions in PPC our organic traffic almost mirrors the increase in traffic from sponsored links.

Note: The site I do the marketing for ranks very well for all major keywords/keyphrases in it's sector.

Is this just a reflection of search users' reluctance to click on sponsored links, partly due to the pointlessness of most and how rubbish many still are. Therefore are more likely to click on the more trusting organic listing. Or could it be as my client are occupying more space on the screen, they are more noticeable so click on both more.

Or is there something more sinister going on, the Big G awards people in their organic listings when they spend more on Adwords?!?

[Robert Charlton]

There have been several studies which have found that there's a symbiotic relationship between organic and PPC in Google. One study claimed that, when you have top placement in both organic and PPC, there was up to a 3x increase in clickthroughs for each.

I've noted that clients who decrease their PPC spends when they achieve top rankings also lose some organic traffic.

On the other hand, maintaining top AdWords positions for some market areas is not always cost effective.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 4:45 pm (utc) on Oct. 4, 2007]

[JS_Harris]

Some people refuse the click on adsense ads but can still visit the sites with the "right-click + copy-shortcut" method. The site uri is near the end (which is what shows in the search box) so when you paste the uri into the google search page to look up the site, its easy to delete the rest.

Just a thought. I KNOW some site owners check out whos advertising on their sites religiously, many do so to contact them directly and offer special deals. Has anyone contacted you out of the blue?

I'm sure spammers have figured out a way to use the copied uri to spam via email, its not hard to see which sites are active. The bottom line is when someone does this to see your real uri, and they use a search engine to find out more about you, your organics go up too.

[edited by: JS_Harris at 9:10 am (utc) on Oct. 16, 2007]

[Alex70]

"Big G awards people in their organic listings when they spend more on Adwords?!?"
IMO there could be some truth... If you are ready to spend $$ on adwords means that you are positive about your ROI = your site is good enough. Result: google my add a little bit of "trust" to your site.

[tedster]

There can be an organic traffic increase when PPC kicks in for several reasons - in some cases, as Robert Charlton mentions above, the total traffic from organic + ppc is more than the what two would generate each on their own.

But there is no intentional action by Google. As I posted in a similar thread recently, about Adsense:

Conspiracy theories about connections between AdWords or AdSense and organic search are a dime a dozen - but not worth any webmaster time or energy in my opinion. Whatever else you may think, Google is NOT a stupid company. Doing something like this would sabotage their core competency, the engine that drives their company.

My advice is to let go of the idea of any connection between AdWords/Adsense and organic search -- get back to improving your business. Just because event B comes soon after event A is no proof that A causes B. This is the logical fallacy called "post hoc ergo propter hoc", one of the major pitfalls to accurate analysis of any situation in life, business or anywhere.