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I'm hoping that Google will feedback toolbar data into the SERPs automatically. Not so much from the voting buttons, but they can see how long you spend on the sites that you visit as a result of a search.
If they saw a huge number of users very quickly backing out of the page that is #1 for a particular term then this could be taken into account.
People would argue that this might not be fair; because you could see the information you were looking for and be happy with it. However, Google could get tricky with the data and say things like "well, they backed out quickly and they went to the #2 page. I'm also talking backing out fast - ie in the time you take to indentify that you have hit nothing more than one of those affiliate directory things.
Ted
It all comes down to Google needing a team of humans to go after the worst offenders. I know that this is not likely to happen however it would certainly slow the amount of SPAM if there was a more immediate response. As it is now the SPAM stays sometimes through a number of updates while G tweaks the algo to eliminate it. This allows the spammers time to recoup their investment before moving on to new ways of getting ranked.
They do have just such a team. It's made up of webmasters who don't like their own rankings.
can just imagine 75% reporting Hotmail or AOL for spam purposes, thinking its their ISP that needs reporting :)
Shak
Shak, they'd be right. Throw MSN in for good measure! But it isn't Hotmail or AOL or even Spamazon, it's YOU and ME they're going after.
