by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) The way I see it, Google is a brilliantly executed extortion racket.
The key concept to understand is that Google makes its money through misdirection.
They get nothing for directing you to the most accurate search result. They get paid to artfully direct you away from the most accurate search result.
Natural (free) search takes you to the most likely thing you’re searching for, according to their algorithms. Paid search takes you to the person who was willing to pay the most for the term you are searching. It is misdirection.
They are very clever about this. If the misdirection is too obvious or egregious, you’ll lose confidence in them and search elsewhere. They walk a fine line, and are careful about just how much misdirection is acceptable.