Chicago - 6:31 pm on Feb 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

My vote: I am in favor of whatever the SE is in favor of.

TrafficL ~ your insight into to contradictions and difficulties within PFI is certainly appreciated and noble. It is about time that something struck a chord with you on WW. We can’t learn from you if you don't talk…. but you already knew that.

I will not take aim at your PFI concerns, as they are legitimate. Instead, I will take aim at what you fail to address: The fact that no Algo is without bias or manipulation, PFI or not.

Put another way, the pretty picture you paint for G fails to consider the fact that *you* manipulate an Algo based upon what you know of its bias.

So, on one hand you promote free (index every page in the world) serps for the good of the people, all the while, you (like us) are manipulating those same pages for the best rank. Not because we are more relevant, but because we know how to optimize our pages in accordance with the bias of the Algo. Money manipulates, but so too does knowledge.

We know that more than half of all users don't go to page 2 of serps, and we know that we are in a struggle for a finite amount of extremely valuable real estate. To fight the PFI battle for the people, when you or I are simultaneously competing against these same people is confusing logic, which makes me wonder how much you’re worrying about clicks on those thousands of pages. Maybe trusted feed will help.

PFI has flaws. Algos have flaws. And no serps are without strong bias.

Thanks for sharing your views, but Y! has made its decision and in the final analysis they are no different than you or G or I, we are trying to maximize our utility.