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Now that I think about it, the whole argument is bogus. For every SERP where your result loses traffic by virtue of falling below the fold, there's probably a S
by spolsky 16y ago
Now that I think about it, the whole argument is bogus. For every SERP where your result loses traffic by virtue of falling below the fold, there's probably a SERP where your result gains traffic because the competitors fall below the fold.
Sorry, this hypothesis is neither logically correct nor is it backed up by any facts. Do some real experiments next time before you start making claims of having discovered scientific truths.
- keltex 16y agoI don't think that SO's users are representative of google's as a whole. For example, there are a lot less advertisements on software development related searches. What I was pointing out is the high-volume, high revenue searches are being impacted. Plus I'm guessing that people who do those searches are much less savvy than your community. They are less likely to scroll, they have smaller screens and they are problem less discerning between paid and organic results.
- spolsky 16y agoAny evidence of that?
- keltex 16y agoWhich part? The fact that novice users have a hard time distinguishing between PPC and organic results? Anecdotal with the many novice users I have dealt with. That there is less advertising for software related keywords vs. other types of keywords? Try out Google's adwords traffic estimator: https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox
- spolsky 16y agoAny evidence that "high-volume, high revenue searches are being impacted"?
- gvb 16y agoIn addition, the push down of the "fold" only exists as long as the user is doing the "instant" part. As soon as the user decides the search is what he wants and either hits <ENTER> or clicks on it with the mouse, the drop-down box disappears and the results that were "below" the "fold" go back to the original place. The 25% statistic is also tenuous: if you have a bigger screen than the illustration in the blog, you will have more results shown (i.e. Google will "steal" less than 25% of the results). If you want to be more dramatic, do an instant search with a really small window and OMG!!! Google will "steal" 100% of your results.