Google's job, if it's to remain relevant, is to algorithmically determine which webpages best answer or address a searcher's query. That's all that most anyone expects.
I can see "multiple associated sites" being one rationale factor, amongst a great many, that might be factored into "signals of quality". However, making 'associated domains' the sine qua non [google.com] of the absence of quality of a given page of content is a seriously flawed model.
There are many people who can write about a broad swath of topics based upon personal experience, education, training . . and writing skill. Chances are that what I publish, about civil litigation or visting Yellowstone Park or rebuilding a motorhome or investing in microcap stocks or dealing with hazardous waste management in the workplace would provide a more robust analysis or interesting and informative presentation of the subject matter than 99.999% of whatever else is in Google's index relating to the query. It's Google's job to elegantly assess that or suffer diminution of their relevance in their effort to combat exploitation.
There's no valid assessment of "on page intelligence", or even the subject matter authority of a website, that can be extruded merely by a count of the number of domains associated with any given website or webpage. (Maybe, in the future, we'll need to submit are subject matter resume along with our sitemaps? ;0) )
If that argument, about the drawing of rationale inferences, isn't sufficiently compelling then I'm not going to lose any sleep. I see it as Google's problem, not mine, if they lose interest or faith due to my interest or anyone else's interest in covering more than one subject or being associated with more than one website.
Bottom line analysis: It's only one small factor amongst a great many folded into an effective ranking algorithm. Any other conclusion means the engineers are beginning to petrify.
Lest you haven't read it before take all this with the caveat that, to my fettered and shackled brain, building any business around search engine love is . . . well . . . an exercise in the economics of Brownian motion.
[edited by: Webwork at 4:01 am (utc) on Jan. 29, 2007]
