Search engines still don't clearly inform consumers about the influence of advertising on search-results placement and rankings, writes ClickZ, citing a report issued Thursday by Consumer Reports WebWatch. The latest study - the fourth - found little had changed from the previous year and concluded that none of the 15 search engines studied had satisfactory disclosure. WebWatch looked at the prominence of disclosure headings and the clarity and accessibility of disclosure statements; it found that nearly half the sites stayed the same, a third got worse, and only three of the 15 improved.

The study found that many search engines moved or changed the color of disclosure elements to inconspicuous gray or removed the direct hyperlink from the "sponsored links" headings to the disclosure page, making it more difficult to find.

Among the top engines, AOL Search, Google and Yahoo Search Marketing received good marks but showed little change over the previous year. Ask Jeeves and Yahoo Search were downgraded for making headings less visible and removing hyperlinks to disclosure statements. MSN Search showed improvement, largely because it discontinued paid inclusion and content promotion programs, and therefore had less to disclose.