johnnie - 11:38 pm on Nov 25, 2009 (gmt 0)

Wow. Seems like I'm rowing against the stream here ;)

Google isn't getting paid to list the site on it's serps pages.

You're refuting the very basis of Google's existence. Google was born out of the need to bring order to chaos; to be able to search through the web from one clean and accessible entrypoint. Google provides them this starting point exactly. Mind you that without organic results, there would likely be no Google in the first place: who'd go to a search engine if there's no content to search through? So while it may be true I'm not paying G to get my site in their SERPs, I am providing them with additional reasons for their users to come to them; quality content. In fact, one might even argue Google does get its piece of the pie; I have been a content publisher on their content network for quite a while now and have no intention whatsoever of cutting them out.

Monetization of search result pages is a logical step and being a marketer myself I'm not opposed to such at all. However, in my opinion Google is severely pushing the boundaries here. They're losing touch with their founding principles. They're a search engine.