[stephenr]

It's cute that you think people either searching on Google, or people/organisations with organic results shown on Google are their "customers".

I mean it's also naive, and wrong, but it's cute too.

[shawnz]

Give this tired quip a break. You don't have to be spending dollars to be a considered a customer, that's not what customer means.

[stephenr]

It literally means a person who purchases something.

No sane person on the planet would consider a person using a search engine for free, "the customer". The customer is the person who buys something - in Google's case, advertising.

[shawnz]

Right, and users of the engine aren't using it for free. They're paying in ad impressions.

[stephenr]

Ad impressions are like shares. They're only valuable if someone is actually paying real money for them somewhere.