It's good to be Google, CEO/Pilot Eric Schmidt and Apex Aviation. Big-spending AdWords advertiser and vertical search engine Virgin Charter? Not so much.

Apex gets the Google gold.

Eric Schmidt has the use of a corporate jet that he makes available from time to time to Apex Aviation Corporation for charters by Apex to its customers. This aircraft has been chartered by Google from time to time and made available to certain Google executive officers for time-critical business trips.

In 2007 Google paid Apex $7,000 per hour for use of this aircraft.

(That's more than some SEOs charge for hourly consultations!)

The Google board of directors approved this hourly reimbursement rate based upon a competitive analysis of comparable chartered aircraft and which Google's board of directors determined was at or below market rates for the charter of similar aircraft.

In 2007, Google used Schmidt's aircraft for business-related travel services for certain of our executive officers and we paid Apex approximately $1,107,938 in fees through December 31, 2007.

Bluestar Jets must be singin' the Blue Star Blues to Google. Great SEO and position in Google. Great Google paid search results. Blue Star follows the 10 Golden Rules of SEM.

It's not all that bad though. Google runs an auction and doesn't show any favoritism in this case to big spenders in the Google ecosystem.

Plus, Blue Star Jets reportedly posted their most profitable month ever in February for customers of private jets (46% increase on the month, and 27% increase on the year).

That's not proof of recession. That's recession-proof.

Last week at SES NY, new comScore data on universal search showed that Google was sending more traffic to its own properties than it had been in the past. That led some people (including me) to wonder if that meant Google was becoming more like a portal than a search engine.

But that data appears to miss the larger picture, where Google is sending even more traffic to news sites than it does to Google News. In today's SearchDay, "Is Google Not So Portal-Like After All?," Greg Jarboe digs into the subject, and finds some surprising results.

If you look carefully in your next Google search, you might just see a video ad included in the sponsored listings along side your organic results. It's not obvious at first. You have to look for a version of the PlusBox, used for things like local search results and video in the organic listings, in the ads column.

In February, word came that Google was testing video ads, and searchers began noticing the ads on live searches this morning.

I did a search today for [smart phone] (since [smartphone] didn't return a video), and found an ad with an invitation to "Watch Commercial" under it:

When you click on the plus sign, the listing expands to display a video right there in the results. You also may need your grandmother's magnifying glass as the video ads are tiny! They're just 160x140 pixels, including the player navigation.

So far, it looks like only searches for "tech" terms like laptop or cell phone will trigger a video ad. Searches for cat food, personal finance, and luggage did not return any video ad results.

Searchers want answers, not just results. That's something Hearst Magazines is apparently abundantly aware of with its acquisition of Answerology, a relationship advice site. With Google becoming more of a destination site than a portal, companies like Hearst need to compete online by offering a robust destination site of their own. Hearst is poised to do just that with the addition of Answerology, which allows users to post questions anonymously and select specific demographics in which to seek answers from.

"Service journalism is all about helping people find answers to their questions, from trusted experts. That's what we do in our magazines and on our magazine-branded web sites every day. Answerology offers us a new type of service journalism, using a 'wisdom of the masses' model built on the expertise of users who are like you," said Chris Johnson, VP, content and business development, Hearst Magazines Digital Media.

If wisdom of the masses proves to be more valuable than wisdom of the algorithm, companies like Hearst stand to benefit monumentally. Answers sites saw significant percentage increases in traffic last year.