Is google manually manipulating seach results? Is this another case of Google not following their own guidelines. You be the judge.

The google webmaster guidelines state page's location in the search results are completely automated.

However David Kramer, an attorney from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, who is representing Google says Although rankings are based partly on a mathematical algorithm, Google also studies the quality of sites and makes subjective judgments

Greg Boser has raised the question whether google is manually manipulating search results

Other than that, I haven't heard anything more on the subject.