It Really Is A Google World And We Are All Just Living In It

Aaron Wall has been writing similar posts for years.  But in pulling a couple of screenshots for Local University Advanced on Thursday, this one for “pizza” really struck me.

For those who missed the subtlety:

(Among other things, note the additional, completely unrelated Google Offer underneath the map.)

In all honesty this post is not meant to pass judgment on Google one way or another.  I’ll leave it to the Senate Commerce Committee to decide whether this is their reward for building an amazing technology or an abuse of their position as the market leader.  But as a purely practical matter, if you’re not doing a serious Adwords campaign OR competing in Local, you’ve basically got two organic slots that might draw searchers’ attention.  Those of us practicing organic optimization should probably bone up on Adwords as a defensible future skillset.

Update 8:45pm PT: Mike Pantoliano (@MikeCP) came across this screenshot of the same SERP in 2008.