What is the difference between an Organic and Paid search engine listing?

Organic listings are the free listings that appear in the main portion of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). There are typically 10 organic listings on a SERP.

Paid listings can appear at the top, right-hand side and sometimes bottom of a SERP around the free listings. Typically there are 2 paid listings at the top and 8 paid listings on the right-hand side of a SERP depending on the number of advertisers for a specific query. The position or rank of a paid listing is determined by the maximum bid amount and quality score of an advertiser’s keywords.

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