sean22 - 10:56 pm on May 30, 2010 (gmt 0)

I tend to agree with you about the direction, but... Any ideas on how Google might now be measuring quality content? I'm coming up empty on that right now. Also what is the character of the May 17 change that several here have mentioned? We can continue the Mayday discussion in this thread [webmasterworld.com] for as long as we need, but probably should keep pace with new changes here, because Google isn;t standing still, that's for sure.

We know Google is evolving, at one point it accepted just about any content and ranked pages better that had the exact kw in the title, url, content and repeated way too often. Then we were at the point where synonyms and actual strategic placement of KW played in ranking content. Google is becoming increasingly smarter at identifying better written content.

Everything I wrote mainly applies to a segment of websites (informational). I believe these websites will be rewarded for greatly written content. I read it somewhere here about Google scanning millions of books. Could it be possible that Google is deciphering text and understanding the context? There are many ways they can gauge quality. There are of course exceptions such as content that dazzles the net and abounds with an influx of temporary social media links. It's complex but Google I think knows evergreen, social, commerce, news , etc content and hey the net is changing.

Is it right for any site to rank well for many Kws simply because of domain authority(acquired by links) when other sites have better content and deserving? This doesn't apply to e-commerce sites because as others have previously mentioned it's inevitable that they must pay. How else is Google going to be a trillion dollar company. :D

I meant closure to the April 28 – Early May long tail KW crisis in which many of us were hoping would resolve itself.

Anyway it's just my 2 cents.