Whitey - 6:33 am on Jun 10, 2011 (gmt 0)

I'm 100% sure it's just not true

I'm not so convinced and indeed the search team themselves may not be focused on that, as indeed you say. With an operation the size of Google's such a shift must follow some authorsiation process which is commercially linked. Timing is critical.

With every adjustment in the organic SERP's there are winners and losers - granted ( albeit Google is occupying more of that space with it's own marketing realestate direct controls ). But with every disruption comes panic and companies question their investment and stability in the SERP's so are more likely to switch budgets across to Adwords.

There has to be a commercial angle on this out of the hands of the purists who do their job in search quality and spam with the best intentions toeing the company line. Maybe Matt wants to tell us the truth and half the Google employees may do as well - but they don't write the communication policy and interviewers are keen not to loose their contact by being too direct or they won't have a second chance at questioning.

That said I believe that Google will reinstate results when it wants to and that will need to have some commercial clearances on the back of the technical considerations. But then again, what do i know :)

This is how myths are born - no communication and lot's of imagination.

All i know is Google is increasing it's income in the last quarter - or so i believe.

I really do wish th Googlers would speak more clearly about the situation - especially why so many sites don't seem to get re-ranked no matter what kind of changes they make.

Absolutely - I'll 2nd that - this would be the considerate thing to do for those involved.