Organic vs. Paid Search Results

Search engine result pages are separated into two distinct sections: organic and paid results.

Natural or Organic Search Results

Organic search results frequently pointed to as natural results are natural results that rank based 100 percent on quality.

In other words, there’s no way to pay Google or other search engines to rank higher in the organic search results.

Search engine hierarchies the organic search results based on hundreds of different ranking factors. But in general, organic results are deemed by Google to be the most trustworthy, relevant, and authoritative web pages or websites on the subject.

Paid Results

Paid search results are ads that are displayed on top of or underneath the organic results.

Paid ads are entirely independent of the organic listings. Advertisers in the paid results section are “ranked” by how much they’re are willing to pay for a single visitor from a particular set of search results known as Pay Per Click Advertising.