What are "actual results" for Southwest though? To me it seems like links to check-in, flight status, schedules and customer services is exactly what I'd want to see there. Is the image what you find distracting? But doesn't this give you immediate indication that you got into the right place?
I think the thing people are objecting to is less the image or its associated links, but that that whole thing is an ad. Yeah, it's probably the most relevant result, but it's giving the user (especially if that user is, you know, non-technical) little choice but to click on the thing that puts money in GOOG's pocket.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that a little evil.
If google is providing you a free service, and giving you exactly what you want in that first result, why shouldn't they get money for doing it? Seems like a win-win to me.
Plus these look more like customized brand pages for companies that people are "specifically looking for", I would rather have detailed information about a company right front and center when I'm looking for it. The fact that anyone makes money because of this fact is ancillary.
You find it evil that people are using the service to quickly find exactly what they're looking for and the service provider gets paid for it? As someone mentioned above, if these were the results for "cheap flights" this would be evil, but they aren't; they're the results for "southwest airlines," and these results are helpful and relevant — that Google is getting paid for them doesn't strike me as relevant when this is the case.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that a little evil.
I'm having a hard time not reading this as effectively saying that it's evil to compensated for providing a service.
Yeah, it's probably the most relevant result, but it's giving the user (especially if that user is, you know, non-technical) little choice but to click on the thing that puts money in GOOG's pocket.
But the user made the choice to use Google in the first place. If people don't want Google getting money for clicks in their search results, then they should use a competing search engine.
I doubt Google gets much for it, because they want to provide the most relevant results to their users. This is how they keep their users. If the front page doesn't show all kinds of stuff for Southwest Airlines when the user typed "southwest airlines", then Google becomes less useful.
Southwest probably knew this when they negotiated with Google for the giant front-page ad.
