The eyes have it, and most of them like to hang out near the top of a search results page. That’s the finding of a new study by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it, which adds hard evidence to the popular view that top-ranking results get the most attention from users. Dana Todd of SiteLab [...]

The eyes have it, and most of them like to hang out near the top of a search results page. That’s the finding of a new study by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it, which adds hard evidence to the popular view that top-ranking results get the most attention from users.

Dana Todd of SiteLab mentioned the study last week at SES, and today there’s an article on Search Engine Watch that goes into more depth.

Two interesting findings:

1. Most people look at search results in an “F” shaped pattern, looking vertically along the left side of results for things like relevant words, brands, etc. and then branching out to the right.

2. A “golden triangle” (screenshot left) exists at the top of result pages, going across the top natural search result and angling back to the left down to the lowest above the fold result (usually the 3rd or 4th position on the page).

More proof that paid listings alone won’t cut it, and that optimizing for organic ranking is as important as ever.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 8th, 2005 at 10:51 am and is filed under Search: Innovations, SEM: Paid Search, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.