An Empirical Investigation On Search Engine Ad Disclosure

TL;DR

This study investigates German search engine users' ability to distinguish ads from organic results, revealing limited user knowledge and insufficient ad labeling, which may lead to unintended ad clicks.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on user difficulties in identifying search ads and highlights the need for better ad disclosure practices.

Findings

Few users reliably distinguish ads from organic results

User knowledge of Google's business model is limited

Ads are poorly labeled, leading to potential misclicks

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 is able to 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.