econman - 1:47 pm on Jan 27, 2009 (gmt 0)

There were two aspects of the original "failure."

1. It gave the appearance that Google was promoting a particular political viewpoint. This was an uncomfortable situation for a publicly held firm, particularly since the viewpoint in question happened to be one that was likely shared by all 3 members ofthe triumvirate that controls said publicly traded company.

2. It gave the appearance that Google was doing a lousy job of quality control and/or that its algorithms don't work very well. This was an uncomfortable situation for a profit making firm, particularly since the firm's reputation for high quality search results is fundamental to its success.

It seems very likely, however, that the attempted solution to this problem led to a new interest in focusing on certain flaws in Google's approach to measuring relevance based on links and anchor text. The subsequent attempts to overcome these flaws probably caused some collateral damage -- particularly if they experimented with different solutions and observed results which, at least in some situations they viewed as improvements. Bear in mind that Google's view of an improvement might not be the same as yours or mine (push highly optimized or SEO'd sites down 950 notches, thereby encouraging webmasters to invest in Adwords, rather than SEO).