In Chapter 1, I propose a model in which consumers base their purchasing decisions upon their recollections of the product quality, and in which firms can use persuasive advertising in order to change these recollections. Although consumers are aware that such advertising has occurred and take...

A key property of the World Wide Web is the possibility for firms toplace virtually costless links to third-party content as a substitute orcomplement to their own content. This ability to hyperlink has enablednew types of players, such as search engines and content aggregators, tosuccessfully...

Web sites invest significant resources in trying to influence their visibility in online search results. We study the economic incentives of Web sites to invest in this process known as search engine optimization. We focus on methods that improve sites' ranking among the search results without...

Web sites invest significant resources in trying to in influence their visibility among online search results. In addition to paying for sponsored links, they invest in methods known as search engine optimization (SEO). We study the economic incentives of Web sites to invest in SEO and its...

Web sites invest significant resources in trying to influence their visibility among online search results. In addition to paying for sponsored links, they invest in methods known as search engine optimization (SEO) that improve the ranking of a site among the search results without improving...