Google's Matt Cutts got called out during a
Spam Police panel. Here's the funkilicious details:
Quote:
Our goal is to provide people with the most relevant answers as quickly as possible, and we do that primarily with computer algorithms. In our experience, algorithms generate much better results than humans ranking websites page by page. And given the hundreds of millions of queries we get every day, it wouldn't be feasible to handle them manually anyway. That said, we do sometimes take manual action to deal with problems like malware and copyright infringement. Like other search engines (including Microsoft's Bing), we also use exception lists when specific algorithms inadvertently impact websites, and when we believe an exception list will significantly improve search quality. We don't keep a master list protecting certain sites from all changes to our algorithms.
The most common manual exceptions we make are for sites that get caught by SafeSearch-a tool that gives people a way to filter adult content from their results. For example, "essex.edu" was incorrectly flagged by our SafeSearch algorithms because it contains the word "sex." On the rare occasions we make manual exceptions, we go to great lengths to apply our quality standards and guidelines fairly to all websites.
Of course, we would much prefer not to make any manual changes and not to maintain any exception lists. But search is still in its infancy, and our algorithms can't answer all questions.
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