Sponsored search click-through rates called into question

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 26 Feb 2009 at 09:17

Internet search adverts may be less valuable than originally thought, according to research from Penn State and the Queensland University of Technology.

Researchers compared the number of click-throughs in searches where sponsored and non-sponsored links were presented together and found the click-through rates for adverts were just half what had previously been claimed.

"I was expecting that an integrated list of sponsored and non-sponsored ads would have a higher click through on the sponsored ads," says Penn state professor Jim Jansen. "But the click-through rate turned out to be only 15%."

The findings also showed that for more than 35% of queries, there were no clicks on any result.

"I expected a big increase [for sponsored links] and when that didn't happen, I was surprised," Jansen says. "The result seems to show that web searchers are smart. They have a good idea what Web ads are and how to distinguish them from other links."

Findings from the study of more than seven million transactions question the validity of other reports that show ad search click through rates are around the 30% mark and also suggests that most consumers do not trust the adverts.

The statisticians studied the success rates of adverts on Dogpile.com, a meta search engine that combines the search results from larger search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Ask and MSN.