Reading this is a breath of fresh air from the traditional "defend Google or other corporations at all costs" type comments. Maybe now we can drop the meme that Google is some altruistic entity and realize that ~97% of their revenue is from advertising. This is why they exist.
It's now just a matter of time before paid inclusion results show up in the organic SERPs like Yahoo used to have.
The best part is in Google's original IPO filing they promised not to ever accept money for inclusion of results:
> "Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating."
> "We do not accept money for search result ranking or inclusion. We do accept fees for advertising, but it does not influence how we generate our search results. The advertising is clearly marked and separated. This is similar to a newspaper, where the articles are independent of the advertising."
> "Some of our competitors charge web sites for inclusion in their indices or for more frequent updating of pages. Inclusion and frequent updating in our index are open to all sites free of charge."
> "We apply these principles to each of our products and services. We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see."
It's now just a matter of time before paid inclusion results show up in the organic SERPs like Yahoo used to have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_inclusion
Edit: Whoops they already broke that promise too!
http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace...
The best part is in Google's original IPO filing they promised not to ever accept money for inclusion of results:
> "Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating."
> "We do not accept money for search result ranking or inclusion. We do accept fees for advertising, but it does not influence how we generate our search results. The advertising is clearly marked and separated. This is similar to a newspaper, where the articles are independent of the advertising."
> "Some of our competitors charge web sites for inclusion in their indices or for more frequent updating of pages. Inclusion and frequent updating in our index are open to all sites free of charge."
> "We apply these principles to each of our products and services. We believe it is important for users to have access to the best available information and research, not just the information that someone pays for them to see."
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/0001193125041...
Times sure have changed!