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Two sponsored ads atop search result pages for popular searches may be joined by a third sponsored link.

"Always two there are. No more, no less." Our favorite Jedi master, the little green butt-kicker, Yoda, was speaking of the evil Sith in 'Star Wars'. For quite a while, that applied to the number of Sponsored Links appearing at the top of certain search engine result pages.

Google has made a little change to this process, according to SiliconBeat. An ad that might normally appear on the right side of the page will join the two sponsored links instead, provided it is a "high-performing" ad.

That would be triggered by a search for a very commercial product or service. Google sees ads as being as valuable to users as a highly ranked search result. A Google spokesperson quoted in the article said the company believes an extra ad improves "the user experience and ad effectiveness."

Other players in the search engine world have similar practices already. MSN Search will toss three sponsored ads at the top of the SERP, and Yahoo will reportedly go as high as four. On Google, a search for "mp3 player" generated three sponsored links in the top position on all three of those engines.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.