The Effect on Click-through of Combining Sponsored and Non- sponsored Search Engine Results in a Single Listing

Most major Web search engines typically present sponsored and non-sponsored results in separate listing on the search engine results page. In this research, we investigate the effect of integrating both sponsored and non-sponsored results into a single listing. The premise underlying this research is that searchers are primarily interested in relevant results to their queries. Given the reported negative bias that searchers have concerning sponsored results, separate listings may be a disservice to Web searchers by not directly them to relevant results. Some meta-search engines do combine sponsored and non-sponsored results into a single listing. Using a Web search engine log of more than 7 million interactions from hundreds of thousand of users from a major Web meta-search engine, we analyze the click through patterns of both sponsored and non-sponsored listings from various perspectives. We also classify queries as informational, navigational, and transactional based on the expected type of content destination desired and analyze click through patterns of each. Our findings show that about 80% of Web queries are informational in nature, approximately 10% each being transactional, and navigational. Combining sponsored and nonsponsored links does not appear to increase clicks on sponsored listings. In fact, it may decrease such clicks. We discuss how one could use these research results to enhance future sponsored search platforms and search engine results pages.