graeme_p - 5:20 am on Jul 24, 2012 (gmt 0)

If this is really necessary, it indicates a major defeat for Google.

The point of a search engine is to find the best content, whereas needing to do things like this means that SEO knowledge becomes more important relative to content.

There is lots of superb content written by people who have only the vaguest idea how Google works, and who do not use any Google Webmaster Tools or any SEO tools to analyse incoming links.

This is potentially very time consuming, can mean dealing with problems that go back years, and may not be in your control at all.