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Small and mid-size companies rate Google's keyword search offering as better than Yahoo's according to a study by Outsell that examined company's ad budgets by business size.

 Fifty-eight percent of small and mid-size companies said Google ads are effective, compared to only 32 percent who rated Yahoo effective. Large companies did not see much difference, with 63 percent rating Google effective and 62 percent rating Yahoo keyword search effective.

"Small, medium and large companies exhibit major differences in where they allocate their ad budgets and what strategies they find most effective," said Leigh Watson Healy, Chief Analyst, Outsell

Small companies allocate almost twice as much of their budgets to print as medium size companies. M id -size businesses rate the effectiveness of print trade magazines higher than smaller companies.

Small business's portion of online ad spending on search engines is double the share of medium or large companies. Medium- sized companies forecast the highest growth rate of online spending.

Click fraud keeps some companies from using pay-per-click advertising. Large companies believe that close to one-fifth of clicks on their ads are fraudulent; while small companies estimate 14 percent are fraudulent.

Outsell surveyed 1,010 advertisers on a variety of topics; from budgeting for print, broadcast and online media, to the effect of click fraud on spending decisions. These advertisers control $6.5 billion in spending.