Search Engine Users Look at Top 3 Paid Ads Longer on Google Than On Bing
By Anna Johnson on February 8th, 2011Search engine users tend to spend five times as much time looking at the top three paid search ads on Google and Bing than they do on the paid ads listed on the right side of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Furthermore, search engine users spend 22 percent more time looking at the top three ads on Google than they do on Bing.
Meanwhile, according to independent eye tracking research from User Centric, Inc., search engine users tend to spend about the same amount of time looking at paid ads on the right side of either Google or Bing.
What about the time spent by search engine users looking at paid search ads versus organic search results?
Again, according to User Centric, users tend to linger longer on Google than on Bing. Before making the first click, search engine users spend 27 percent more time looking at organic search results on Google than on Bing.
That, however, is not necessarily a good thing for Google. Says Aga Bojko, User Centric’s Chief Scientist:
“While more gaze time is good for sponsored results, the opposite is true for organic results. Taking longer to make a decision and scanning more results may suggest lower perceived search results relevancy on Google. According to past research, users tend to scan search results until they find the first suitable link to click, so more time spent on Google could mean it took longer to find a link worth clicking.”
February 14th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
This is a very interesting statistic, Anna. Once again we are reminded how crucial it is to rank high with our search engine ads. And not just high, but in position 1, 2, or 3 now. It’s crazy when you think of how much power the human eye has over online business!