steveb - 7:00 am on Jun 27, 2006 (gmt 0)

"'Spam is a low-quality page that ranks above a high-quality page'" works pretty well, as long as you agree that Spam is a bug in the engine, not a moral failing in someone else."

Nooooo way, a low quality page doing nothing wrong can easily rank higher than a high-quality page that is badly seo'ed, which is very common. Low quality has no reflection on spam whatsoever. An engine has to get that out of its head.

Spam is deceiving the algo. The algo working absolutely sensibly can rank a poorer quality page above a higher quality page, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. The point is that in the main, the best quality results win out, and that when pages are similar in structure, a high quality page titled right will win out over a weaker quality site also titled right.