08/ 11/ 2005
by Reid Goldsborough
When you pick up a magazine or newspaper, you want to know whether what you’re reading was written to inform or sell. It has long been a publishing tradition to separate editorial material from advertising. Both have their purpose and usefulness, but both have their place.
The same principle applies to the brave, new world of online publishing, though because it still is new, norms and practices are still emerging. This equally applies to the technology that often gets people to Web pages: search engines.
Search engines have been criticized for not clearly indicating when sites appearing prominently in search results do so because they’re relevant or because these sites paid the search engine to list them that way.
Organizations, such as Consumers Union which publishes Consumer Reports, and Ralph Nader’s Commercial Alert , as well as the Federal Trade Commission have been vocal in expressing the importance of full disclosure of paid search results.
In response, the top search sites have made improvements, as Consumer Reports’ WebWatch points out. Google, for instance, places paid listings under one of two “sponsored links” headings, one at the top of the page in a shaded box and the other to the right of the page. Yahoo does the same, though it calls its headings “sponsor results.”
If you’re a consumer, does it make sense to click on these paid links when looking for information? If you’re a business owner, does it make sense to budget marketing dollars for paid placement?
Kevin Lee thinks so. Lee, the most visible expert in the country on paid searches, writes a weekly column on the subject for ClickZ the well-regarded, free online publication about online marketing sponsored by Did-It Search Marketing, a New York City search engine marketing firm that chairs the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.
Before talking with Lee, I was skeptical. I mostly ignore paid links, as I suspect many consumers do. I also understood that Lee has a vested interest in promoting paid search. But over the phone -- as in his columns -- he made some powerful arguments for consumers and businesses alike to support paid searches.
First, it’s a big business. Textual ad links generate more than $4 billion in revenue a year for search engines, Lee said. If they didn’t work, companies wouldn’t pay search sites this kind of money.
For businesses, paid searches make sense because they give you more control than “organic searches,” or unpaid search results. “You test, and if it doesn’t work, you cancel,” Lee said.
For consumers, paying attention to paid links makes sense because they can be as or more relevant than unpaid links. “Businesses are paying to be there and don’t want to waste their money,” Lee said.
Businesses pay for key words. When a searcher types in a search word or words relevant to the company’s product or service, its site will appear prominently on the results page. Search sites sell key words through real-time auctions. Businesses can buy this advertising themselves. Search engine marketing firms help with the process by identifying key words to bid on, then testing the results.
I’m an oddball, it seems, in neglecting paid listings. According to Lee, “All the studies indicate that consumers pay attention to paid search.” He recognizes, though, that some consumers pay more attention than others.
With Google, the most popular search site, consumers don’t pay as much attention to paid links on the right of the page as to those on the top of the page, where they’re blended in more with unpaid results. Consequently, when auctioned, key words appearing at the top go for more.
Yahoo, along with offering “paid placement” like Google, also offers advertisers a controversial option called “paid inclusion.” Here, you pay not to be listed separately from unpaid listings, but to ensure that you’re considered for unpaid listings. These listings appear no differently from listings of sites that don’t pay.
In announcing this option, Yahoo said that paid inclusion just ensures that these sites will be indexed more frequently, and that they will be able to submit more information for the search engine to include.
All of this points again to the delicate balancing act between editorial material and advertising.
Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway. He can be reached at reidgold@netaxs.com or http://members.home.net/reidgold.
