Interesting to see someone else see this.. I've been noticing siilar for some of my sites, but also for other searches - recently 'liquid dog nutrition' eg.. so I too get the feeling that putting article based stuff front and center they are encouraging users to click ads - and for commercial sites to pay to play or get shut out.. it's terrible when you have a great site on page 3 of google results and see the crap they put ahead of you on page one - while shady sites pay to advertise there.
more and more like (a worse version) of the yellow pages every quarter.
more and more like (a worse version) of the yellow pages every quarter.