On my 26" display I have almost never seen ads taking up all the space. In fact most of the time, there is one or two ads at the top and rest 80% of the space if organic search results. People cherry pick examples to show how bad ads are but in general it's not true. So, no, ranking is still critical, well and alive with good algorithms.
Current revenue increase is because of YouTube's contribution that's finally happening. YouTube had been time bomb in terms of revenue explosion that has been ticking for a long while. YouTube probably generates more views then most popular TV channels but there were hardly any ads until recently. My guess is that YouTube might come close to revenues eventually to web search itself.
Current revenue increase is because of YouTube's contribution that's finally happening. YouTube had been time bomb in terms of revenue explosion that has been ticking for a long while. YouTube probably generates more views then most popular TV channels but there were hardly any ads until recently. My guess is that YouTube might come close to revenues eventually to web search itself.