[Strom]

First let me say that ads in general definitely work, I'm definitely not arguing against that.

What I'm talking about in specific is search ads where the ad is for a term that ranks organically high anyway.

It's not just imaginary either, I've done a lot of over-the-shoulder customer observing. Just recently I saw a friend search for "dropbox" and then click on the first result in Google, which is a paid ad by dropbox for dropbox. They rank #1 anyway!

Now in dropbox's case it might be worth it, because they have enough competitors who would like to steal that ad spot. However for most businesses that's not the case for their top terms.