I don't think so. It looks like subsequent refreshes of the same query lower the number of sponsored links shown. I searched for "San Francisco dentists" (I'm in the Bay Area) and I got exactly what was shown in the article. Refreshed a few times, and the number of sponsored links shown was decremented by one each time until, until it got down to just the four small 2x2 ads.

Got the same behavior searching "Palo Alto dentists", though the number of sponsored links started lower.