http://www.full-value-of-search.de/

By Google :)

google made a study about adwords
see: http://www.googlewatchblog.de/2008/09/16/studie-werbung-mit-adwords-steigert-bekanntheit-der-marke-um-20-/

Thanks for this, it's really useful. I would not have been able to read it if you hadn't translated!

I think there's a misunderstanding: Google assumed that the user was happy with the top ads (they are relevant), not that he didn't distinguish them from the search results. The dialog is too short to draw too many conclusions, but Google should have used a different conversation to illustrate that the ads are relevant.

Alex, even if it means the user is happy with the top ads, and that the user feels the top ads are the most relevant results, it means that the webmaster must pay Google in order to be in top spot.

It is the implication of a money premium paid to Google for top result that is of more importance here than of user experience.

Google made a mistake by using that dialog to illustrate that AdWords ads are relevant.

- Someone asked the user if he knows why some of the results have yellow background.
- The user didn't know, but he assumed that Google wanted to draw attention to some high-quality results. He didn't say that the results were actually relevant.

"Sponsored Link", without "Caches" and "Similar Pages". This is enough to distinguish when we scan the text, and locate the objective results.

We need to remind our self that when we enjoy the free meal, the machine farms and Google employees need to be paid.

The top sponsored link does draw a bit attention. However, I think this is just a line of balance of user benefit and commercial value, and so far the line of Google is closest to user benefit among competitors.

Ad-supported media is corrupt and corrupting – Google is not immune.

My Mindshare 10-Point Declaration

1. My mindshare is mine.

2. My mindshare has real monetary value.

3. I have a right to sell, trade, or keep my mindshare as I choose.

4. Nobody is entitled to take my mindshare without my permission.

5. Unsolicited and intrusive advertising amounts to mindshare theft.

6. Mindshare theft is wrong.

7. I have a right to resist mindshare theft.

8. I demand media that does not deal in stolen mindshare.

9. I support media that respects my mindshare.

10. The world is better when individuals control their mindshare and their media.

"Another slide tells advertisers how easily those AdWords are confused with organic search results."

Philipp, can you point me to which slide you're talking about? Or are you referring to the slide that you showed with the dialog?

Jim Bursch: How do users figure out what information they want to receive, without viewing some information they don't want to receive?

The hot zones, click zones, or whatever they're being called are the first few results: ads, Wikipedia and Youtube results.

If anyone wonders why you might get less traffic from the same keywords from a year or so ago while still being in about the same results position, there's one reason.

> "Another slide tells advertisers how easily those AdWords
> are confused with organic search results."
>
> Philipp, can you point me to which slide you're talking
> about? Or are you referring to the slide that you showed
> with the dialog?

Yes, that was the slide I showed in the post I was referring to, sorry if the phrasing was ambiguous. This text is in that slide, my translation:

----------------------------
"INT [interviewer]: “Why do the results on top have a yellow background, did you notice?”

TP [tester]: “I didn’t notice this.”

INT: “What does it mean?”

TP: “It definitely means they’re the most relevant.”
----------------------------

To recap:
- The user *did not* consciously notice these results had a yellow background
- The user considers these these two top results *the most relevant*
- Google considers this worth pointing out when they promote AdWords to advertisers

Note the user does not say these top two things are the most relevant *ads* – he says these are the most relevant *results*. (Also take a look at the eye tracking to see how much these bought results are focused on on average.) In my experience, and perhaps Google could quantify this with user testing, ads on average are *not* the most relevant results. They may be relevant sometimes, and they may rarely be more relevant than the top organic spot, but whatever Google considers to be the most relevant, it presents as top organic result.

I wonder if Google (or another organization) has any study as to how many people confuse the yellow top ads with organic results. A portion of users will always confuse some things, but I wonder how large the percentage is – also, in comparison to the old blue background these top ads had before. Then we could compare with what Sergey Brin talked about, the "clear, large wall between the objective search results and the ads".

If there's another reading to the slide that I missed, I'll be happy to collect more opinions and point it out as an update.

<< The user considers these these two top results *the most relevant*. >>

I don't see it that way. The user suggested a plausible explanation for using a yellow background to separate the top "results". He didn't say that the top results were relevant.

INT: “What does it mean?”

TP: “It definitely means they’re the most relevant.”

Yes, first of all the user didn't consciously notice the color separation at all ("clear, large wall between the objective search results and the ads"?), and then when he's asked to take a guess he figures they must be the most relevant results – but they're not, on average they're *less* useful than the white-background listing below. And Google considers it worth pointing out this user's statements.

Google created this website? I am not sure, see the WHOIS-record for this domain: http://whois.domaintools.com/full-value-of-search.de

Personally, I would rather avoid the situation completely where it's possible for someone to have Philipp's interpretation. I asked some Googlers about this, and they were already looking into the report themselves.

I can understand what Ionut is saying that the user is just suggesting an explanation of the yellow background. However, I would have thought that taken in context (especially considering that it is a site advertising Google Adwords) I would have thought it is the intention of the author to mean what Philipp has written.

Otherwise, I don't see why this would be written as a way to convince advertisers of the usefulness of Adwords.

The relevant thing would be the user's answer to the question "Did you know that the yellow background means that the links are advertisements rather than search results?"

Yeah, I noticed it too. SEO clients who are at #1 for their keywords still need to buy the spot above or they lose 50%+ traffic.

Ok, if you need Google to tell you this you might want to consider another occupation. Anyone who is aware of the early eyetracking studies knows why Google put ads back there after removing them for a time. In fact I believe the ads were more expensive and not available to all advertisers or had a premium attached. Color it yellow, color it blue, it doesn't matter users don't differentiate between organic and paid. They click links that look like it is what they want. Anyone who has been successful at PPC knows that is why the top 1-2 and possibly 3 positions work better.