A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project entitled “Search Engine Users” has a number of interesting findings:

1. Majority of search engine users (62%) are not aware of the distinction between paid ads and natural search engine results.

It is not really surprising that many people do not understand that the phrase “Sponsored Links” is actually advertisement. Many think that the listings below sponsored links are endorsements of some sort, not paid advertising. Plus, some engines do a better job in separating the paid placements from the natural search results like Google, while others like Yahoo actually integrate their paid ads with the natural search engine results blurring the distinction between paid links and natural search links.

2. Study shows that 44% of search engine users regularly use only one search engine, while 48% will use 2 or 3, while the remaining 7% will use more than 3.

This statistic is very interesting from the point of view of a webmaster or advanced Internet user — which most likely fall in the 7% category. The rest of the population have their favorite search engines and stick with it. These are obviously not the folks who swear to shift their allegiance to MSN or Yahoo when Google sandboxes their sites. They are not particular with algorithms used by the search engines. They don’t monitor every slight hiccup or major update of the search engines. Maybe, they are not even concerned of the spam that could possibly fill the results of their favorite search engines. They have simply become aware of a particular search engine, used it and liked the results, and sticked with it.

For the complete PDF report, visit the Pew website