The hottest topic this week is the serious problem Google is having with spammers hijacking innocent websites and replacing those sites in the SERPs. Pandia has an article at http://www.pandia.com/sw-2004/40-hijack.html that describes the situation in detail, and a lengthy heated thread is being discussed at WebMasterWorld at http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/25638.htm.
Google has apparently known about this problem for several months, yet has either ignored it, or been unable to fix the problem. These serious situations need to be addressed quickly, and if they are not, then the media will soon latch on to the problem, as they did when the Florida update caused such an uproar. Now that Google is held accountable to its stockholders, it must resolve such problems to keep their investors happy. With Yahoo and Microsoft breathing down their backs, they can ill afford to ignore such problems. Google...heal thyself...and quickly!