mhansen - 12:42 am on Oct 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

U.S. paid clicks, a measure of how frequently consumers click on its ads, increased 28% compared with a year earlier and 13% sequentially.

Using Googles' own words... Search is a sum-zero game, meaning for every click that one person loses, another person gains.

The 28% increase in paid clicks, means that 28% of organic clicks have gone away.

How many of us think ANY of that will ever come back? The days of Google being being about the users have long passed... unless you are a user of their stock in your portfolio.

Not to be interpreted as anti-Google either, I am all for capitalism and free market. I just have a bad taste in my mouth for a company that builds itself on the guise of always-fair, always-objective and always about the user, then pushes them out of the way to maximize their ad footprint.

MH