Organic Search Results

These are search engine listings – or websites that appear in response to queries on Google – that no one paid for directly.

These are separate from paid search engine results, which advertisers directly paid for (see: Search Engine Marketing). A large percentage of the population cannot tell the difference between the different kinds of results, thanks in part to Google’s obfuscation. It does not matter much anyway.

For any commercial search query where someone may spend money as a result of that search, the best-ranked websites are almost definitely the result of businesses spending money to achieve prominence. The query could be “buy new fighter jet,” or it could be “what should I wear when visiting a fortune teller.” In either case, that money often goes to search engine optimization instead of ads.

Consider a search for “organic dog food.” The top listings are ads, and they are nominally demarcated as such. Those are paid results, or paid listings. The next ten listings are for websites selling organic dog food or writing about it, such as one on a pet store chain’s website entitled, “Ten Ways Your Affenpinscher Can Tell How Much More You Love Her When You Buy Her Organic Dog Food.” These listings are organic results for organic food, or organic organic results.

But pet food brands, retailers, and veterinarians ranking for such a term all paid someone, somehow. They might have hired staff in-house. They might have found freelancers on Upwork or Fiverr. They might have hired content marketing agencies. All of these can cost much more than an ad campaign, depending on how a business allocates its budget. Such efforts can be profitable, as the results can indefinitely deliver qualified leads until competitors spend even more on SEO.

Also known as Natural Search Results. Such results are as natural as they are organic.