tedster - 6:31 am on Jul 27, 2010 (gmt 0)

What a great question - and I'd say you're absolutely right, Google does look at what we might call the "business model" and fit sites into various classifications according to what they can measure. We already know that:

1. Google likes brands
2. Google hates thin affiliates
3. They are trying to get a handle on content mills

The idea that you can make money just by running a script and generating pages and even whole websites is one they'd like to stamp out - you might call it the "automated model".