[fnayr]

> I particularly don't like when the first result is the paid result from company X, and the second result is the organic result of company X, which is only paying to outbid competitors that could appear as #1 when people search for "X".

Haha that annoys me too, and I can totally follow the logic for choosing the organic result, but I use the reasoning that I want to "stick it" to the company whose advertising and force them to pay for the ad they are showing me, so I actually intentionally click the paid result.

[danmaz74]

Well, some advertisers for sure deserve that, but think about, eg, SomeGoodCompany.com which is organically and legitimately the top result if I search "SomeGoodCompany" in my url bar.

If SomeBadCompany comes and starts bidding for the keyword "SomeGoodCompany", and SomeGoodCompany doesn't, when Joe Average searches "SomeGoodCompany", he will see "SomeBadCompany.com - we're even better than SomeGoodCompany..." as his top result - guaranteed by Google, the expert Joe trusts to find the best websites for any subject!

How can SomeGoodCompany NOT pay Google to stop that from happening, supposing they have the means to do it?

When "SomeBadCompany" had their results displayed on the right column, that wasn't an existential threat. Now, it is.

Edits: clarified language