JoeSinkwitz - 4:42 pm on May 25, 2010 (gmt 0)

Walkman,

I hear you loud and clear, and I'm seeing some of the "popular" blogs getting hit, especially those that had backlinks almost exclusively from blogrolls and as apart of media network footer links. The tricky piece is looking objectively to see if the results now replacing those blogs as better or worse from a user relevancy point of view. If G says they are the same AND the paid links are devalued a sizeable enough percentage, then will be okay with the collateral damage; I don't agree with the approach if that was the intention, but can understand their point of view as a SEO looking to optimize around it.