No big surprise about shoppers using search engines.

Recently I've seen news articles regarding shoppers online and how they use search engines 51% of the time. This really isn't a news item. Many people use search engines for a lot of different reasons, but shopping is one of those main tasks that people do. Of course, there are shopping sites but a lot of those leave something to be desired. Usually comparison shopping online isn't complete and doesn't have what you're looking for. That's still what makes search engine so popular when it comes to online shopping. If you can find what you're looking for, the comparison isn't that important. Until there are tools which can definitively find what you're looking for and give you a price comparison, search engines will be the default vehicle for finding what you need.

I sometimes wonder why press releases like this are even mentioned as a news item. Isn't it really obvious that the search engines are getting used to a great extent? But perhaps the question is, are people aware of what natural search results are and what paid search results are? I think in most search engines it's pretty obvious which is which. The ads are on the right hand column and the natural listings are usually in the center. But what is most troubling is that the trend is to crowd out the natural listings with paid listings. From some of the articles I've seen, it doesn't seem to matter to people as much as it used to. Although I think most people trust natural listings, they will go for paid listings if they can't find what they're looking for. The question isn't whether shoppers use search engines, they do. The main thing to glean from it is whether it's the right kind of shopper for a web site. And I guess that all depends on how they got there in the first place.

Getting real for the web, RealWebMarketing.com

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