Air - 9:10 am on Jul 1, 2000 (gmt 0)

Hey thanks for fixing that ID up Brett.

As for the affiliate sites taking a beating there's no doubt. They likely have the biggest reliance on search engines than anyone. Not many people link to affiliate sites, directories shun them, and many just put up whatever the affiliate provides in banners, links, and likely content. A definite recipe for crashing and burning on a regular basis.

The one thing that is a little disturbing is that while many affiliate hubs are also being affected by this on AV, Amazon managed to get itself on the right side of AV. Anyone know how they managed this?

Getting buried for having competing content to a search engine's can't be far behind, and more than likely (although I don't have any evidence) it is happening already.

In a subtle way it has been happening for a long time, if you consider paid listings, and keyword targetted link and banner ads, as methods which to some degree "bury" your pages when they might stand in the way of SE revenue, then it has been happening for a while.