About 41% of consumers were not able to recognise the top listed Adwords were paid-for placed adverts, and considered them to be the most reliable and accurate results, according to a new report.
According to the report from Bunnyfoot, 81% of web users clicked on Google Adwords rather than general search results, with only 19% scrolling down for the organic returned matches.
Another report from GroupM UK revealed that women are likely to click on paid search returns compared to men.
Bunnyfoot co-founder Rob Stevens was cited by econsultancy.com as saying that the two sets of research had key differences, valuable insights into internet user behaviour could be gained.
"The key takeaway for marketers from this test is that there is a world of people out there who don’t know adwords are ads, and marketers should be wary of making assumptions that remove them from a true consumer perspective," Stevens said.
"We were astounded by the numbers when they first came in but there can be no doubt about it: a significant slice of internet users simply don’t recognise Adwords listings as sponsored links."
Google Adwords link keywords selected by advertisers to search results and boost the business or individual’s rankings on a page of related results.
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Reports claim that Adverts remain the company’s main source of revenue, which earned them about $4.25bn in 2012.
