[bambax]

That Google applies the same rules to itself as to everyone else is commendable. What seems strange is how much of this needs to be done by hand.

In essence, Google is admitting that they're unable to detect spam / low quality content, and therefore their "policy" is to punish the perpetrators when/if they get caught.

This may be needed to enforce the rules, but it's an obvious disservice to Google's users, who are apparently considered "collateral damage".

[bdonlan]

The actual problematic link was a single link, apparently - I don't think it's reasonable to have automated systems ban a site from google for a _single_ link, which might well be a false positive. They're trying to show they don't have a double standard though, hence the manual action.

[bambax]

> I don't think it's reasonable to have automated systems ban a site from google for a _single_ link

No, but it would be reasonable to ban the post sporting the offending link.

It also would be in the benefit of Google's users to demote pages that are content-free. I thought this was what "Panda" was all about, but I'm not sure if it's working?