Do You Know What Is Advertising On a Search Engine Results Page?

Studies have shown that most people using search engines don't know the advertised sponsored links from the "natural" or "organic" results on the results pages.  On June 9, 2005 Consumer Reports WebWatch held an "open to the public" conference on "Trust or Consequence:  How Failure to Disclose Ad Relationships Threatens to Burst the Search Bubble". 

At that conference was a representative from Google, Matt Cutts, who said openly that he would pass on the suggestion to make "Sponsored Links" a live link that leads to a disclosure page explaining what the different sections on the result page represent.  Yahoo has this now at their Sponsor Results link on their results pages.

 

It is now forty one days since that conference and Google (my favorite search engine as of now) has not implemented the "live link to a disclosure page" for this Google search for "computer printers" or any SERP.

While some people at that same conference, which I attended, thought that relevancy of search results was more important than full disclosure of ad relationships on a SERP, I hope both issues are taken seriously by the search engines. 

Many first time users of the internet and search engines need to get a good "first impression" on both issues.  I believe that everyone likes knowing if they are clicking on a "paid advertisement" or a "natural-organic" search listing.  We also want the most relevant, personalized, search result listing in the shortest period of time.