 
By Rik Fairlie Think that search-engine results are spun by robotic, unbiased spiders crawling URLs for the most relevant data? In reality, it's a much more tangled Web. The first results of any search on sites such as AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, and even Google are almost certain to be advertising. How many of the other results are pay-for-good-play depends on the site. That's why a group called Commercial Alert complained to the Federal Trade Commission about paid placements in search-engine results that are cloaked as relevant results. Gary Ruskin, executive director of the anticommercialism group, says that his organization took action because search engines are essential tools for learning and shouldn't be reduced to advertising vehicles. "When the information is degraded, it has serious implications on citizens' ability to educate themselves," he says. "Corporate advertisers were hijacking an important part of our research capabilities and turning it into advertising opportunities." Another result of this practice is that smaller sites might not appear prominently on relevant searches because they may not be able to pony up the payment. The FTC responded by urging search engines to provide "clear and conspicuous" disclosure of paid placement or face possible action that could include civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation, says Dean Forbes, a senior attorney in the FTC's division of advertising practices. Most sites have complied with the requirements, says Forbes, "but some sites still need to make changes that would put them more in compliance." The FTC also obliged search engines to explain paid-inclusion programs in a way that would enable consumers to better judge results. The FTC addressed the two most common paid-ad scenarios. Paid placement occurs when Web sites or URLs compensate search engines for higher rankings or more-prominent placements in search results. Paid inclusion, on the other hand, describes Web sites or URLs that cough up for inclusion in a search engine's pool of available results but not to be more prominent. Most search engines rely on Overture Services, formerly known as GoTo.com, to aggregate paid placements and inclusions. Here's how it works: Companies register words or phrases such as buy computers online with Overture. The firms then submit bids for a per-click fee that is paid to Overture, and the highest bidder wins. "The range is about a nickel to as much as $5 per click," says Phil Koserowski, chief operating officer of Harper & Case Interactive, a search-engine marketing company. It's relatively easy to spot paid placement. First, note how the returns page is segmented into blocks. Paid advertising will appear first; the wording varies, but most engines employ the word sponsor. Look for--and avoid--terms such as sponsored search listing, sponsored matches, and sponsored listings. Some sites are less straightforward, however; for example, MSN obfuscates results with the phrase featured sites. Even Google, which consistently delivers the most relevant results, plunks sponsored links at the top of searches and in blocks to the right. Koserowski says that the ads at the top of Google pages are traditional banner ads; those on the right are pay-per-click, although he notes that Google does rank them by relevance. "A company may bid the highest and win a top spot," he says, "but if no one clicks on the ad but clicks on one below repeatedly, they'll start bumping the top ad down the list." Most sites comply with the FTC's requirement that paid-placement ads be explained. With the exceptions of iWon.com and Ask Jeeves, sites insert a link right next to the sponsored-links entry. And, except for MSN, most of the sites are very up front in their explanation of paid ads. MSN offers six explanations of what the search result might be, with "MSN advertising partners" as the last possibility. Another caveat: Even within real results, you might come across another form of paid placement that is not clearly labeled. The reason? Search engines can dig up only Web pages, and many merchants' product databases are built on XML coding and therefore don't exist as a Web page. Inktomi, the Web-search and paid-inclusion services engine, constructs pages for e-tailers based on their XML databases so that these URLs can be included in searches. The merchants pay each time a shopper clicks the listing. Google is currently the only prominent search engine that does not accept these XML feeds, Koserowski says. And that means its results, for now, will be more relevant. About the only thing that you can do to avoid paid placements--other than pass over anything attached to the word sponsor--is to precisely tailor your searches. For example, if you're searching for a Canon PowerShot S45 digital camera, try powershot-s45+4-megapixel; you're more likely to avoid paid ads than if you simply typed in powershot s45. But the larger issue is whether you should continue to employ sites that are little more than searchable Yellow Pages. I don't think so--relevance should rule which site you choose. So if you're not satisfied with your searches, fire up a different engine.
Rik Fairlie is the editor of Computer Shopper magazine. Questions or comments? Let him know!
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