The Influence of Commercial Intent of Search Results on Their Perceived Relevance

We carried out a retrieval effectiveness test on the three major web search engines (i.e., Google, Microsoft and Yahoo). In addition to relevance judgments, we classified the results according to their commercial intent and whether or not they carried any advertising. We found that all search engines provide a large number of results with a commercial intent. Google provides significantly more commercial results than the other search engines do. However, the commercial intent of a result did not influence jurors in their relevance judgments

The Influence of Commercial Intent of Search Results on Their Perceived Relevance

We carried out a retrieval effectiveness test on the three major web search engines (i.e., Google, Microsoft and Yahoo). In addition to relevance judgments, we classified the results according to their commercial intent and whether or not they carried any advertising. We found that all search engines provide a large number of results with a commercial intent. Google provides significantly more commercial results than the other search engines do. However, the commercial intent of a result did not influence jurors in their relevance judgments

Search Engine Advertising (SEA) Or Organic Links: Do Customers See The Difference?

This study seeks to investigate the perceptions and attitudes of internet users toward the sponsored link. In light of this study, respondents do not express greater bias with sponsored links in comparison with traditional advertising media, as well as in comparison with organic links. Among factors that mostly affect searchers’ attitudes, the informativeness is the critical factor; however, no specific category of information will significantly increase the respondent’s likelihood to explore a sponsored link. It is rather text relevance to the keyword typed by the searcher that makes a link attractive. Results also indicate that business students recognize a great value and potential benefits of using search engine advertising as a marketing tool

Experimental Evaluation of Sponsored Search Auction Mechanisms

The theory of sponsored search has been developing rapidly although with disagreement in scientific circles on answers to some basic questions about sponsored search. This study focuses on two of these questions, namely, if a search engine seeks to maximize profits, 1) what should its pricing policy be and 2) what should its ranking policy be. This paper uses experiments with economically motivated human subjects to address these questions. We evaluate six different sponsored search auction formats with two different pricing policies (Pay-per-transaction & Pay-per-click) and three different ranking policies (Rank by relevance, Rank by click-through rate, & Rank by both relevance and click-through rate). Our results suggest that Pay-per-click is superior and the reason behind its superiority is behavioral in nature whereas the ranking policy has significant effect on search engine revenue and advertiser profit

Search Engine Optimisation. PageRank best Practices

Projecte realitzat en col.laboració amb el centre RWTH AachenSince the explosion of the Internet age the need of search online information has grown as well at the light velocity. As a consequent, new marketing disciplines arise in the digital world. This thesis describes, in the search engine marketing framework, how the ranking in the search engine results page (SERP) can be influenced. Wikipedia describes search engine marketing or SEM as a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). Therefore, the importance of being searchable and visible to the users reveal needs of improvement for the website designers. Different factors are used to produce search rankings. One of them is PageRank. The present thesis focuses on how PageRank of Google makes use of the linking structure of the Web in order to maximise relevance of the results in a web search. PageRank used to be the jigsaw of webmasters because of the secrecy it used to have. The formula that lies behind PageRank enabled the founders of Google to convert a PhD into one of the most successful companies ever. The uniqueness of PageRank in contrast to other Web Search Engines consist in providing the user with the greatest relevance of the results for a specific query, thus providing the most satisfactory user experience. Google does use PageRank as part of their ranking formula. Although it is not as important as many believe, it is nevertheless a measure of a web page’s popularity, and gives a certain indication on how “important” Google considers a page to be. The goal of search marketing is being visible to the end user. Two different fields within search marketing can be pointed out: Search Engine Optimisation and search engine marketing. This study focuses on the first one, Search Engine Optimisation, which refers to all types of initiatives and actions taken by website designers in order to increase the relevance for the Search Engines. It is about design, optimising content, linking structure (internal and external) and other page specific factors. Because of the predominance of Google, this thesis looks at which steps can be taken in a certain website when trying to be optimized for Google’s algorithm PageRank. Moreover, other factors which also have an influence are analyzed

Keyword Competition and Determinants of Ad Position in Sponsored Search Advertising

Given the significant growth of the Internet in recent years, marketers have been striving for new techniques and strategies to prosper in the online world. Statistically, search engines have been the most dominant channels of Internet marketing in recent years. However, the mechanics of advertising in such a market place has created a challenging environment for marketers to position their ads among their competitors. This study uses a unique cross-sectional dataset of the top 500 Internet retailers in North America and hierarchical multiple regression analysis to empirically investigate the effect of keyword competition on the relationship between ad position and its determinants in the sponsored search market. To this end, the study utilizes the literature in consumer search behavior, keyword auction mechanism design, and search advertising performance as the theoretical foundation. This study is the first of its kind to examine the sponsored search market characteristics in a cross-sectional setting where the level of keyword competition is explicitly captured in terms of the number of Internet retailers competing for similar keywords. Internet retailing provides an appropriate setting for this study given the high-stake battle for market share and intense competition for keywords in the sponsored search market place. The findings of this study indicate that bid values and ad relevancy metrics as well as their interaction affect the position of ads on the search engine result pages (SERPs). These results confirm some of the findings from previous studies that examined sponsored search advertising performance at a keyword level. Furthermore, the study finds that the position of ads for web-only retailers is dependent on bid values and ad relevancy metrics, whereas, multi-channel retailers are more reliant on their bid values. This difference between web-only and multi-channel retailers is also observed in the moderating effect of keyword competition on the relationships between ad position and its key determinants. Specifically, this study finds that keyword competition has significant moderating effects only for multi-channel retailers

Trademarks as Search Engine Keywords: Much Ado About Something?

We report on the results of a two-part study, including three online consumer surveys and a coding study of the results when 2500 trademarks were run through three search engines. Consumer goals and expectations turn out to be quite heterogeneous: a majority of consumers use brand names to search primarily for the branded goods, but most consumers are open to purchasing competing products. We find little evidence of traditional actionable consumer confusion regarding the source of goods, but only a small minority of consumers correctly and consistently distinguished paid ads from unpaid search results, or noticed the labels that search engines use to differentiate paid ads from unpaid search results. Although we do find some evidence of confusion, the types of confusion we document do not map neatly onto the categories recognized by U.S. trademark law. Our findings suggest that the development of the doctrine in this area has not been well served by the reliance of judges on casual empiricism in resolving these disputes. Much remains to be done to ensure that trademark doctrine is empirically well-grounded, and fits the online context. Part II provides some context for this dispute, including background on search engines and keyword searches. Part III outlines the extensive litigation, both foreign and domestic, over the use of trademarks as keywords, and identifies six assumptions that judges have made in resolving these cases. Part IV presents our empirical results. Part V discusses our findings, and Part VI concludes

HiER 2015. Proceedings des 9. Hildesheimer Evaluierungs- und Retrievalworkshop

Die Digitalisierung formt unsere Informationsumwelten. Disruptive Technologien dringen verstärkt und immer schneller in unseren Alltag ein und verändern unser Informations- und Kommunikationsverhalten. Informationsmärkte wandeln sich. Der 9. Hildesheimer Evaluierungs- und Retrievalworkshop HIER 2015 thematisiert die Gestaltung und Evaluierung von Informationssystemen vor dem Hintergrund der sich beschleunigenden Digitalisierung. Im Fokus stehen die folgenden Themen: Digital Humanities, Internetsuche und Online Marketing, Information Seeking und nutzerzentrierte Entwicklung, E-Learning