Article

How Does Ranking Affect User Choice in Online Search?

Mark Glick, Greg Richards, Margarita Sapozhnikov et Paul Seabright

Résumé

This paper investigates whether a search engine’s ordering of algorithmic results has an important effect on website traffic. A website’s ranking on a search engine results page is positively correlated with the clicks that it receives. This could result from the search engine’s accurately predicting the websites relevance to users. Or it could result from users merely clicking on the highest ranked links, regardless of the website’s relevance. Using a unique dataset, we find that a website’s rank, not just its relevance, strongly and significantly affects the likelihood of a click. We also find evidence that rank influences CTRs partly by controlling access to the scarce attention of users, but primarily by substituting the reputational capital of the search engine for the reputation of individual websites.

Mots-clés

Internet search; Page rank; Click-through rates; Scarce attention;

Codes JEL

  • D03: Behavioral Microeconomics • Underlying Principles
  • D12: Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • D83: Search • Learning • Information and Knowledge • Communication • Belief

Publié dans

Review of Industrial Organization, vol. 5, n° 2, septembre 2014, p. 99–119