Re: Bidding up search terms at GoTo.com

From: Danny Sullivan <danny_at_calafia.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 05:49:36 -0600 (CST)

MARKWELCH_at_ADBILITY.COM WROTE:
> In other words, people really are reading the results and trying to
> make intelligent decisions about which links are actually of
> interest to them -- being first or even "in the top ten" apparently
> does not have the awesome value that some people seem to attribute.
> Maybe this is unique to GoTo.com because visitors can see the bid
> rates and perhaps are less likely to be misled?
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A couple of comments about this.

GoTo is unique in the sense that all the top descriptions
will have intelligent, marketing friendly descriptions. In
contrast, do a search at a "normal" search engine, and the
description may or may not make sense.

Some people will make use of the meta description tag, write
targeted and motivational descriptions, and thus may get a
better clickthrough being lower in the top ten rather than
being number one.

In contrast, some site may not use the tag, and thus their
descriptions may be alt text and whatever other garbage
makes up the first 200 characters on a web page. Not an
appealing way to get people to click through.

Similarly, other people may simply write descriptions that
are nothing more than a string of keywords. Maybe that helps
get them to number one, but it doesn't mean people will
click through.

In general, I'd take a high listing with a great description
over a number 1 listing with a poor description everytime.
You can certainly outperform those "on top."

I've seen stats over at GoTo, and there, there is a definite
dropoff in clickthrough rates as you move further down the
list when compared to normal search engines, where you have
a smaller drop off. The reason comes back to those
descriptions. At GoTo, you come in, get presented with many
sites having excellent descriptions, and thus the
inclination to go with the first makes more sense.

But Mark's experience shows that's not always the case.
Again, those descriptions do have a role to play -- and the
lesson to take away for search engines in general is to
really think about writing good ones.

cheers,
danny



-----------------------------------
Danny Sullivan
Editor, Search Engine Watch
http://searchenginewatch.com


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Received on Fri Feb 19 1999 - 08:07:53 CST