How much of it is real? Analysis of paid placement in web search engine results

Scott Nicholson; Tito Sierra; U. Yeliz Eseryel; Ji Hong Park; Philip Barkow; Erika J. Pozo; Jane Ward

doi:10.1002/asi.20318

How much of it is real? Analysis of paid placement in web search engine results

Scott Nicholson, Tito Sierra, U. Yeliz Eseryel, Ji Hong Park, Philip Barkow, Erika J. Pozo, Jane Ward

Department of Library and Information Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

30 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Most Web search tools integrate sponsored results with results from their internal editorial database in providing results to users. The goal of this research is to get a better idea of how much of the screen real estate displays "real" editorial results as compared to sponsored results. The overall average results are that 40% of all results presented on the first screen are "real" results, and when the entire first Web page is considered, 67% of the results are nonsponsored results. For general search tools such as Google, 56% of the first screen and 82% of the first Web page contain nonsponsored results. Other results include that query structure makes a significant difference in the percentage of nonsponsored results returned by a search. Similarly, the topic of the query also can have a significant effect on the percentage of sponsored results displayed by most Web search tools.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	448-461
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Volume	57
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20318
Publication status	Published - 2006 Feb 15

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Software
Information Systems
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Networks and Communications
Artificial Intelligence

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10.1002/asi.20318

Cite this

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AU - Sierra, Tito

AU - Eseryel, U. Yeliz

AU - Park, Ji Hong

AU - Barkow, Philip

AU - Pozo, Erika J.

AU - Ward, Jane

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How much of it is real? Analysis of paid placement in web search engine results

Abstract

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

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