Reno - 4:52 pm on Oct 8, 2009 (gmt 0)

It's using penalties to fight against unscrupulous operators that don't really care about penalties, not when they can just set up a chain of new sites once the old ones are taken down.

Bullseye. Google is constantly fighting the latest battle, in a never ending war. I wish they would significantly increase the value (in the algo) to those sites that have genuine "historical authority" -- that is to say, those sites that most fulfill the query AND have been around for awhile. Whether those sites trade links with a thousand other sites is irrelevant; whether they pay for outside links is irrelevant; whether they include affiliate banners is irrelevant; whether the site owner has numerous other websites is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is this: Do they fulfill the query and have they shown their longterm committment? (and thus have trust & authority). That is mostly what people care about.

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