It is naive of G to expect that webmasters will conform to their expectation of putting up only “content rich” sites, when most real sites HAVE to justify their existence commercially of fall off the web.

Imagine a large daily paper that ‘required’ its advertisers to put up only socially helpful ads – how long would that last, if it didn’t have a virtual monopoly?????

@shady: I enjoyed your post.

The argument that a blackhat arguably provides a better user experience because they have commercial incentive only applies to those searchers that are looking for a commercial transaction. For those searchers that are looking for answers, commercial sites (or at least blackhat ones) usually require some sort of conversion to provide those answers.

However, the idea that as webmasters or SEO people should just agree to do whatever Google asks of us so we can all work together to make the web a better place is just naive. There’s no partnership here. Google’s (and any search engine’s) bread an butter is user experience but they’re not sharing any of the money they make as a result with you. When’s the last time you flew with Larry and Sergey on the Google jet?

My personal take is that Google is just another source of traffic to my sites. Yes it’s a big source but still, just a source. I will do whatever I have to do to get high rankings. I’m not wearing any hats, I’m just trying to run my business to the best of my ability and not leave my fate in the hands of others.

One last thing… Doug, you keep using the “you’re young and inexperienced” card. Let’s look at it from another angle. Perhaps you’re just old and out of touch with the way things are today.

*Following up with the obligatory “I’ve been doing this for over 10 years now and am in my late 30’s.”