Econsultancy recently did an article on how paid search results are dominating some search engine results pages. While this increases the overall value and revenue associated with the search engine results page, I’m not that optimistic that it increases the value for the search user.
Here’s a screenshot of the “credit cards” search engine results page:
Here’s a great infographic from WordStream on the argument of paid versus organic search. While marketers may argue over which one is more impactful, if Google continues to shrink the organic search section there’s not much of a debate to have. I think it will be a sad day in online marketing when a great company can’t simply work hard to develop great content and get the attention they deserve.
It’s really not even a question. “FOLLOW THE MONEY.” Google’s made all its changes not because the results were that bad. Often times Affiliates provide more info – it’s the research that can get stuff to convert. Google made those changes because they don’t make any money on SEO. So they went to the big / branded sites to spend money on Adwords instead of SEO. And then they tried to reward those using Google+ so they could further get data.
In there defense, they’d be warning on “spam” links – aka anyway you can make a link for yourself – since 2008. We just didn’t want to listen. Just wish I had stock in PRWeb before Spring 2011.
Hi Douglas Karr,
Great and well researched infographics. Beisde this after the penguin update google pay less attention to organic search. SEO industry also affected by this. Paid ads are getting grow.
Hope the next update would be favour in organic.
Thanks for share