Quadrille - 1:55 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

It's time for G to figure out a new way of battling spam

Why?

Their current approach - tweaking the algo, with measure of human intervention - is doing a little bit more than maintaining the staus quo.

What are the alternatives?

Google is spidering untold millions of web pages ~ there really is no way they physically examine each one, and why would they wish to - they'd be broke in a week.

I've no idea what their current spend is - but you can bet it's many millions.

Don't forget they don't expect to win; just keep spam to an 'acceptable' level.

And, outside of the certain areas, they do just fine.

And if you look at sitemap verification, nofollow and the like, you'll expect to see a more proactive approach gradually take over. It's all good news, isn't it? ;)