Comment by thaumasiotes
14 hours ago
> And let's not forget, these are the same people that when searching for "eBay" will put an ad at the top of the results, linking to eBay, and then place eBay as the top search result.
Do you see an ad when you search for ebay? I don't.
eBay stopped paying for placement on the term "ebay" more than a decade ago, and I believe the executive who made that call got a bonus. It's possible of course that they changed their mind later, but since there still isn't an ad on the term today, I suspect they didn't.
(Methodology: I opened Microsoft Edge, where I have no addons or adblocking or anything installed, went to google.com, and searched for "ebay". There are no ads in the results panel. There is a sidebar with some non-sponsored information provided; below that sidebar is a section saying "people also search for" that mentions Etsy, Shopify, Poshmark, and Mercari. That section isn't sponsored either.
As a point of comparison, I also searched for "mortgage loans". (Same window, new tab, google.com.) On that search, there is no informational sidebar, and the results panel begins with a section called "Sponsored Results" which occupies the entire vertical extent of the browser window. (And consists of all of four links, with blurbs.) Below the sponsored results is the AI overview, and below that are the genuine results.)
I don't on that exact search but I do see it when I try this in the iPhone App Store. I do also see it on my Android when searching the Playstore.
It was an example. You're getting lost in the weeds. Similar to this saying BuT sOmEoNe ElSe WiLl GeT tHe ToP sPoT