It’s an occurrence nearly as old as AdWords; Google advertises its own sites on top of Google web search results.
Normal people like us need to pay for AdWords, though what exactly Google needs to do I’m not sure – they certainly pay in terms of losses from ads that they’re pushing away, which otherwise would’ve made them money. Some people, however, think it’s still an unfair practice; a writer for Central Desktop argues that Google “cheats” because they show ads for their own, competing web based collaboration products for search queries like intranet, spreadsheet, documents, calendar, word processor, email, video, instant messenger, blog, photo sharing, online groups, maps, start page, restaurants, dining, and books (I can’t see the ads in Germany, by the way, but Alek from the US made the screenshot above).
Central Desktop says, “if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you’ll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend.” (Interestingly enough, Google also has superb organic rankings for many of the competitive keywords.) I wonder what you all think of Google’s approach.
Update: The last point Central Desktop makes (“you’ll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you bid and spend”) has been proven wrong in the comments.
Tag:
Add to 
Bookmark Murdok:
Philipp Lenssen from Germany, author of 55 Ways to Have Fun With Google, shares his views & news on the search industry in the daily Google Blogoscoped.
