econman - 6:20 pm on Aug 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

For those who believe they have seen evidence of hand editing, do the symptoms seem more suggestive of steps to remove sites (or push them off the first page) or steps to insert sites (or push them onto the first page).

It seems to me that the the evidence would look rather different depending on the direction of the suspected intervention, and it would be useful to know if there is a consensus on the direction of intervention.

In turn, this might provide some clues about motivation. For instance, a downward push/removal might be an attempt to solve a perceived "spam" problem without resorting to a "sandbox" type solution. In contrast, an upward push/insertion would more more likely to be motivated by a desire to make sure the SERPs include certain sites, or types of sites, which might be "expected" by certain users, despite an inability to get the algos to produce the "expected" result.

This also has some relevance to the question of whether this will tend to "freeze" the SERPs. Insertions will tend to be static, making it much harder for other sites to make it onto the front page via the algo-driven results. In contrast, removals will have a much shorter-lasting impact. That particular site may be permanently banned from the first page, but analogous sites (e.g. perceived spam) will work their way back onto the page, unless they change the algos, or frequently redo the hand weeding".