Paid Search vs. Organic Search

There is somewhat of a rift among Search Marketing folks regarding Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click, etc). On one side, there are the Organic Search folks (organic search refers to the 'regular' non-paid search results). They contend that not enough people pay attention to paid search and that Pay-per-click in particular has become problematic due to increased competition and click fraud.

On the other side are the Paid Search folks who contend that Paid Search, including Pay-Per-Click, is still a viable means of generating profits for websites, if managed properly.

Studies have tried to discern how web users view and react to Paid Search in relation to Organic Search. This oft-cited study performed at Penn State, concludes that "...on more than 80 percent of the searches, study participants went first to the results identified as 'organic.' Sponsored links were viewed first for only six percent of the time." It's worth noting that this study involved a group of 56 participants ranging from 18 to 29 years old.

Another study tossed around Search Marketing circles was performed by Pew Internet. It concludes that "...among search engine users who are aware of the existence of paid listings, not all are able to tell whether the results they view are paid or not. Just 47% say that they are always able to tell, compared to 45% who say they are not." This conclusion is based on a survey involving a broader group of participants - 2,200 adults ages 18 and over.

An obvious question comes up when these two result sets are laid side by side: How can 80% of searchers ignore the Paid Search results if 45% (almost 1/2) of searchers cannot determine what a Paid Search result is?

If you do a search on Yahoo! for example, it's easy to see how someone can be confused. Yahoo! places the top 3 Pay-Per-Click bidders directly above the Organic results. Even though the words "Sponsor Results" are off to the right, it may not be readily apparent that these are Paid Search.

At any rate, I don't think there's enough in either study to draw final conclusions, but I think most people involved in Search Marketing would agree that there is some level of bias against paid search. How deep it might run or how far-reaching it may be are still question marks.

For web-based businesses just trying to get off the ground, paid search is still perhaps the only means to get traffic at least until you are more established. And there was the caveat that the Pay-Per-Click campaign must be 'managed properly'. To properly manage a Pay-Per-Click campaign you must be willing to (1) test your ads, (2) monitor the ads frequently, and (3) measure the results. For those who don't mind putting in that little bit of extra effort, Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing PayPerClick ads can still be viable sources of traffic for your new site.

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