Paid results look better than the organics.

[kidder]

I've just noticed this on a few but not all long tail search terms. The search term was very clear in what it was looking for but nothing in the top 10 results was a decent match. I find it amazing with the technology Google has at its disposal that this can happen even once.

[internetheaven]

This is being covered in the May SERPs changes discussion. Google have spent more time in the past year making paid results more relevant. Now they've got it perfected, they've stuck a wheel in the spokes of their organic results so they "look relevant" but people are better off clicking the paid results. CTR on Adsense content and search are taking off as a result. Excellent business strategy from Google's point of view, the old "drag em in for free then make em pay through the nose" trick ... do no evil my arse ...

[cien]

That could cost Google big time; being the number 1 search engine. I agree, search results are worse than ever, irrelevant.