For the last two years, every SEO conference I've attended had sessions that stressed there was a boost that happens when you have a top Organic Listing for a key-phrase and a Top Paid Listing for the same phrase (1+1 = 3).

OK…but now…a new Patent from Microsoft, when applied, will get rid of duplicate link (or a set of links, one from Organic and the other from Paid) and leave you only the Paid Link!  Of course, that's only a suspension in the Search Results - not the index, which remains unchanged - but it does shake things up a little.

According to SearchEngineLand:

"…The patent, Systems and methods for removing duplicate search engine results, explores filtering organic results when there's more than one URL pointing to the same page (i.e., http://www.example.com, http://www.example.com/home.html) on a search results page. It adds the possibility of removing a Web search listing from a search results page when there's also a paid listing pointing to the same page."

Hmm..that's interesting …. so the Organic link gets to go …and the Paid link stays - why not the other way around?

It just shows me that as time goes on, even unpaid or "free" results get monetized.  It's also showing me that things change - what was true in the past and now might not be true tomorrow.