tedster - 2:49 am on Jul 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

Yes, it was. It was supposed to empower the more trusted sites.

Somehow the signals Google used for trust were a bit garbled. Most of the ranking mash-ups I saw were not just some "hacked up in my bedroom" affair. They had venture capital behind them, as well as some relatively big name management. That doesn't mean they are good resources, however.

To Google's credit, they did back off on this.