varya - 4:23 pm on Mar 22, 2004 (gmt 0)

I have definitely noticed changes in the serps recently, as a surfer, and not good ones.

In February, I researched the bibligraphies of a couple of hundred authors.

Early in March a bizarre hard drive episode corrupted my file (which I hadn't backed up as I was still working on it), and I had to repeat my research.

I had a much, much harder time finding the information the second time.

There was a particular case that really disgusted me. I was searching for "authorfirstname authorlastname bibliography." The first result was on a domain with the word sex in it (this is a children's book author). Upon visiting the page, there is no content whatsoever. There's a list of search results, along the lines of "Find your 'authorfirstname authorlastname bibliography' at xx.com" and "Buy your 'authorfirstname authorlastname bibliography' at ****.com".

And a big ol' Adsense skyscraper down the side of the page.

AS for my own primary site, it has dropped from #1 to #13-14 for the most relevant phrase. Every one of the sites listed above has, as it's only content on that topic, a link to my site.