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If you wondered why Google continues to relentlessly gain market share, look no further than Microsoft's boneheaded concept of progress. "Good news," crows Microsoftie Carolyn Miller, announcing the addition of a fourth ad spot above Microsoft's Live Search results. That brings the total spots on Microsoft's search-results page to nine. But the search results and ads on a simple query — say, "flowers 94103" — remain useless. Adding more space for ads means less competition for the spots — and thus less economic pressure on advertisers to only buy carefully thought-out ads relevant enough to perform well. If Microsoft were serious about beating Google, it would show fewer ads, not more. This was a decision made by an accountant, not an algorithm.