Google 'unfestive' towards paid links

Christmas is the time of year when search engines such as Google alter the way in which they rank websites, reports the Guardian.

The newspaper claims that search engines change their algorithms in order to weed out the sites which are not organic results and are simply there to increase their search engine optimisation (SEO).

It claims that a drop in Google ranking can possibly have a "fatal" drop in trade as the first site to appear in search listings will attract around half of all clicks, whereas for a site which appears on page two, it can expect less than one per cent.

The newspaper reports James Keehan, SEO expert, as saying: "It's an odd grey area, because it is very happy to take advertising money off the sites that it says other people shouldn't be using to boost their search engine rankings."

A study by Enquiro Research found that search engine users were 220 per cent more likely to remember a brand which appeared highly on a search engine ranking compared to a side advert, reported in Brand Week.