Wilburforce - 5:55 pm on Nov 1, 2012 (gmt 0)

Certainly this can't be a proud circumstance for those responsible for the quality.

One would think so, but I'm not sure how much of it they see. The number of possible search terms is effectively limitless, and if they are rolling out algorithm changes every couple of days they can't have time to look at much of a sample.

Couple that with their current geographical focus - unless I use a proxy I get results based on my ISP server's location - and what they actually see is probably not at all representative.

I may look at my own sector's main money term and think whoever came up with those results must have gone back to work before they had recovered from brain surgery, but the fact is that whoever came up with those results probably hasn't seen them: he has just seen what his code did to the spammers in high-street retail, and is patting himself on the back.