When Site Owners Have Natural Listings...

[Lee]

In the search engines for great search terms, for example, spots in the top 5 results, why do they then proceed to purchase adwords campaigns for those same keywords that they already appear towards the top of the search results in?

Isnt that just well, wasting money for no reason at all?

Your thoughts?

Regards,

Lee

[BBweb]

Just protecing their keywords.

[HotMaleVideos]

It could also be affiliates trying to get some of the organic traffic. I've seen that.

[Dzinerbear]

Sometimes your AdWords ad appears in the organic listings, too.

Michael

[Chilihost]

there may be a reason the natural listing is #5 if they pay for adwords....not that google would ever confirm a direct link between paying for ads and getting a natural listing :evilgrin:

[Dzinerbear]

there may be a reason the natural listing is #5 if they pay for adwords....not that google would ever confirm a direct link between paying for ads and getting a natural listing :evilgrin:

I forgot about this. When I stopped buying AdWords, I noticed a significant drop in my organic rankings.

Michael

[C1R_Andy]

No Impression...is a bad impression

With the company that I used to work for, we were in a huge battle for a group of keywords. After a lot of time and money on SEO, our site gradually moved up to the #1 natural result in google...YAY.

When this initially happened, I paused our adwords campaign thinking "why spend the money, when I have the 1st result FREE?"

After a few weeks, I started to see a decline in the amount of traffic coming from google. I was checking every day and we had not dropped from the first natural position. Then it dawned on me, that just because we were the #1 organic result; it did not mean we were the #1 result; as the sponsored results still appeared at the top of the page; now displaying our biggest competitors first (in the sponsored section).

When I restarted the adwords campaign, our traffic shot back up; again, never effecting our organic result.

So from that experience, it is my understanding that people will click the first, most relevant link they see on the page...so the higher the better. Also, I wonder if they trust those listings a little more because the word "Sponsor" appears in front?

Further; the more exposure, the better. So what if your site appears twice on the same google result...that's a good thing right? Twice the chance for a click thru?

Another benefit...your 'sponsored' listing can appear on SEVERAL of the pages of the results, whereas your organic listing will only appear on one page (generally).

Last, your organic result can change....OVERNIGHT. There were a few times we dropped from #1 to #5, #14, and even onto the second page. So to be safe, I kept my adwords account live ever since I paused it the first time.

Andy

[shaun]

Google SWEARS it doesnt include sponsored ads as part of page rank... but..... googlebot is a stupid little robot....

I think that perhaps the key to it is that you are, with adwords, buying anchored text links as well, and it helps your placement.

In any case, yes, we buy a search word that we own organically - but I dont know that we would have it organically without the adwords... SO, Im going to leave it be!