Definition of the Pay-Per-Click Process and PPC Search Engines

Because it is a relatively recent phenomenon, many online business owners do not understand the meaning of the term “pay-per-click advertising,” nor do they realize its enormous potential for increasing their online presence and bringing more traffic to their websites. Even those who understand basic search engine marketing techniques sometimes fail to make the distinction between pay-per-click (hereafter, PPC) ad campaigns and organic search engine optimization.

Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines are those that offer the marketing option called "pay-per-click" to users. PPC advertising is the placement of a small ad on the search results page for a specific keyword or keywords in return for a specified payment when a visitor actually clicks on the ad. Advertisers pay nothing to appear on the results page per se; they only pay the amount they have agreed to (or bid for) when someone actually clicks on their ad and is taken to the landing page on their website. The term "pay per click" means just what it says: the advertiser pays each time a visitor clicks on the ad.

The most popular PPC search engine is Google; their PPC advertising program is called AdWords. The next most popular search engines are Yahoo!, MSN Live, and Ask. A large number of other search engines offering PPC advertising opportunities are available - ranging from metasearch engines that incorporate traffic from numerous other engines and online sources all the way to small, niche search engines that specialize in one or more categories or topics of interest. Here at PPC Universe, we have included reviews of what we consider to be the Top 10 Search Engines, as well as a section of reviews of other search engines that offer paid advertising opportunities.

Below are screenshots of a Google search engine results page and a Yahoo search engine results page, indicating the locations on the page where PPC ads are typically placed on each of the two engines.

A PPC listing on a search engine results page typically consists of a title, which is usually a short heading (around 50 characters maximum) and also a short (typically no more than 200 characters long) description of your service or some promotional wording, as well as a link to your website. Most PPC search engines strictly control the type of text that can appear in the listing, and sometimes include a manual review before approval; others automatically approve ads that are submitted.