Outside of top three on Overture / Statistical Info

[Thirdcatgy]

Hi,

Just had a couple of quick questions with regard to PPC Engines:

- On Overture, what advantage would there be to hold a position outside of the top three?

- I was interested to see if there were any numbers on the percentage of SE traffic that actually uses sponsor links?

Thanks for the insight,

Billy

[webdiversity]

Thirdcatgy,

The benefit of being outside of the top 3 are obviously the cost per click drops off quite quickly, as does the number of visitors you will get.

One of Overture's partners is Freeserve, it's an arrangement that has been extended recently I believe.

They have undertaken to show all of the paid results and we find that we can get decent traffic even at lower levels because of this.

Not sure about the last bit of your question, but it's enough to make PPC a viable option.

Hope that helps.

[Thirdcatgy]

Thanks for your response WebDiversity.

Couple of followups for clarity:

- Since there are only three spaces available in the top Overture sponsor links, does that mean that from # 4 on are moved into a higher position within the general population since they are never in the actual sponsor links that appear at the top of Yahoo and such?

- Also, my second question wasn't very clear. I was interested to see if there are any statistics (from Overture or Google?) which would show how often total internet traffic opts for a sponsor link?

Thanks again,

Billy

[seth_wilde]

Since there are only three spaces available in the top Overture sponsor links, does that mean that from # 4 on are moved into a higher position within the general population since they are never in the actual sponsor links that appear at the top of Yahoo and such?

No, the listings always appear in the order they are bid. It's just that not all search engine limit themselves to the top 3.

Current examples
Yahoo - top 4 (5-6 on bottom, 7+ continued on next page)
Altavista - top 4 (5-10 on the right)
Netscape - top 2
Dogpile - top 5

[Thirdcatgy]

Did not realize that. thank you so much seth

[vibgyor79]

I was interested to see if there are any statistics (from Overture or Google?) which would show how often total internet traffic opts for a sponsor link?

That depends on -

1) The keyword used
2) Search quality of the listing for that particular keyword. If the search result is perfect, many users would probably opt for search result
3) The positioning of the sponsored link. In Google, sponsored links are quite distinguishable unlike that of Yahoo or AOL or MSN.
4) The ad copy of the sponsored listing
5) The experience level of the surfer - some of us here never click on sponsored listings.