I disagree. I feel Google is trying to provide the best search results for search queries. Do not confuse their PPC advertising with search results.
A lot of folks expect Google to be like this “super god like entity”. There staff are human, just like you and me, and make mistakes, just like you and me.
I don’t feel they would purposely manipulate search results, with Microsoft and Yahoo wanting to snatch their share of the search query market at the slightest bad press Google would receive if this where true.
If you feel they are purposely manipulating the results give some good examples to back up your assertions. What you are saying is that millions of webmasters around the world are actually wasting their time with SEO. :hmmm: