Google is built around a bias toward brands in their search rankings. They consider something to be a brand if people are actually looking for the particular website by queries in the search box or direct traffic from typing in the address bar. This bias favors larger advertising budgets because people become aware and return to find the website. There is a clear short term advantage to Google in this brand emphasis. That is it forces players to take out ads so as not to be buried by Amazon, Wikipedia, NYTimes.com and other clear brands. The constant shake up of the algorithm also favors Google in making companies less confident in transitory rankings.
This is all unfortunate for the consumer because instead of the beauty of a beach area main street where people gather to visit the mom and pop shops and interesting ‘hole in the wall’ finds, they are presented the big box franchise same as always stuff that cities force by their zoning. More and more it has become less of a ‘search engine’ and more of a giant yellow pages with the big players first.