Google search question

[Gary Majchrzak]

when you do a search online...

the keyword(s) in your search bring up a bunch of websites.
Do (can) people/businesses pay Google in order for their website to appear at the top of your options?

 

[Ding2daDong]

Yes you can, and it's not cheap.

-Matthew

 

[naprestsleep]

The sponsored links that appear above the search results(and I think many people think are the search results) are paid for, not sure about the "real" results. I know there is/was a science to getting your site higher on the list by the way you design it.

 

[eugeneK]

there are also companies that you can pay to bump your google search results.

 

[johnd651]

i believe the meta data present in the heading code helps google dictate content and clicks to a link help rank order

 

[jaybfresh]

The ones at the very top hi-lighted in light yellow, and the links to the right hand side are paid, and they are labelled "sponsored links". All the rest are ordered by a super secret algorithm that takes things like web traffic into account

 

[BlueCorn]

i believe the meta data present in the heading code helps google dictate content and clicks to a link help rank order

Sponsored links are indeed labeled as such. Header metadata, however, has very little impact on your search rating. Content is the most significant driver in search rating.