Recently Enquiro President, Gord Hotchkiss, wrote about the changing landscape of SEM in his third installment of "SEM's Seven Year Itch".
He is exactly right when he states "... we're rapidly approaching the day when being number one ceases to have any meaning." This is the old school approach to search engine marketing and SEO. Whether you are a black-hat or white-hat SEO, things are about to get a lot different and possibly more difficult for you. This 'old-school' view of trying to get to number one in the rankings is in fact tied to the concept of a universal results page as Gord has mentioned in his piece.