Are sponsored search links risky ?
Let me tell you what is the sponsored link first ::
According to Wikipedia
Sponsored links are text-based advertisements that describe an advertiser’s Web site and the products and services offered.
Typically charged on a per-click basis, when Web surfers click on an advertisement and visit the advertiser site, charges are made on a pre-determined amount that the advertiser has agreed to pay. The prices of sponsored links are usually set through a bidding system, where higher bids (along with other factors including performance, etc.) result in more prominent placement.
So are they risky ? Well read the story and you decide :
Clicking on a search engine’s results of popular computer terms like “wallpaper” or “screensaver” remains a fairly risky endeavor when it comes to security, according to an updated study.
The second annual State of Search Engine Safety report from McAfee Inc. , found that roughly 4 percent of the most popular search results link to “risky” Web sites. That’s a broad category of online pages that can offer Web searchers more than they bargained for. The results were a marginal improvement over last year’s data, which pegged the level of risky search results at 5 percent.
The results are less troubling than those McAfee released this time last year, when risky sites accounted for 8.5 percent of all sponsored ad results for the most popular search terms. The company attributes the improvement largely to Google’s “improvements in paid search safety.”
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