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An empirical investigation on search engine ad disclosure

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  • Dirk Lewandowski
  • Friederike Kerkmann
  • Sandra Rümmele
  • Sebastian Sünkler

Abstract

This representative study of German search engine users (N = 1,000) focuses on the ability of users to distinguish between organic results and advertisements on Google results pages. We combine questions about Google's business with task†based studies in which users were asked to distinguish between ads and organic results in screenshots of results pages. We find that only a small percentage of users can reliably distinguish between ads and organic results, and that user knowledge of Google's business model is very limited. We conclude that ads are insufficiently labelled as such, and that many users may click on ads assuming that they are selecting organic results.

Suggested Citation

  • Dirk Lewandowski & Friederike Kerkmann & Sandra Rümmele & Sebastian Sünkler, 2018. "An empirical investigation on search engine ad disclosure," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 69(3), pages 420-437, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:69:y:2018:i:3:p:420-437
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.23963
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    Cited by:

    1. Sebastian Schultheiß & Dirk Lewandowski, 2021. "How users' knowledge of advertisements influences their viewing and selection behavior in search engines," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(3), pages 285-301, March.

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