Counterpoint: Google has become the "default" way many people browse the web. Because of Google many web users don't memorize or bookmark TLDs for websites, they just use Google to find it. As a result, it could be argued that Google is taking users away from your site by proxy of this.

Google helps with discovery of your site on their engine, so now it's your God-given right to get traffic from them because that's how people use the Internet now?

It has become the default and so popular because they were good. I hope users will change their behavior if they realize there are better alternative than Google

Before: more people find your competition when searching for you

After: less people find your competition when searching for you

The issue is that coupling search and ads violates the expectation of "First result = Best result". Especially when A direct 100% fit can be replaced by a competitor (or even a parasite (in legal terms)) targeting your users.

No it's pretty clear what are ads or not on Google. "Best" definition changes for all Search engine and it's very very subjective, changing from person to person and situation to situation

If a company is ready to pay to be displayed first, then so be it

> No it's pretty clear what are ads or not on Google.

It is for you and I, but not for the average user. My grandpa clicks on sponsorized links because they are at the top, no matter the presence of the word "ads" or "sponsored".

It would be a lot clearer not to have ads at the top but elsewhere, so that the “best” result is always at the top.

But then you would complain your grandpa is clicking on the links because they are yellow and flashy "We need a law against yellow <a> tags !"

No. We’re used to click on the top links because that has been the way to present search results since the origin of search engines. The presentation of ad links elsewhere would not trigger the same amount of misclicks, whatever their presentation would be.