Google's Relevancy Issues - Thoughts?

They are certainly actively working to find ways to limit the impact of certain well worn SEO methods such as exact match domains. The problem is that it is all too easy for them to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater, thus hurting the quality of their search results even further.

Yeah, Google can't just devalue them - those same criteria that are being exploited by those evil SEO types (muhahaha) are also extremely good criteria for discovering the genuine value of a site/page. You can't just start discounting the value of anchor text in backlinks, that IS actually a really good way of knowing what a given site is about and has worked well for years! Likewise, if a site is called campinginfrance.com it might actually genuinely be about camping in France - stands to reason!

I guess the Google boffins are throwing some serious research into all this - wonder what the result will be... I sort of also hope EMDs will lose some value soon - I mean, there are just about none left unregistered, for one thing (I looked)!!

(P.S. Yeah, I reckon the Google people DO know this stuff is going on - you know, I think they MIGHT even stop by forums like this one occasionally Heck, I bet they even bought the Xfactor book!)

I understand what you are saying, but what is the most fair and equitable result to the end user? To randomize search results? Highest keyword density? Most facebook likes? Fastest Link builder? Slowest, most consistent link builder? Oldest site? Somebody has to be number 1, some site has to be more relevant than the next site to the individual user. Who decides? That is why there is a search algorithm. It is not perfect, but supposedly always being tweaked. Remember, this is still a relatively new game, going on 14 yrs now. I think Google knows this is a game. Reminds me of the movie in the 80's, 'War Games', when the computer asks Matthew Broderick, "Would you like to play a game?" Google rewards those who play fairly, regularly, consistently, honestly, and often. That's just my opinion though.

So they had a meeting abut EMD. I have a hard time believing that an EMD about greathockeygoals.com is going to return the results for the 'best football touchdowns' as content.
I believe that certain ways to 'game' the system will be devalued over time. Possibly low hanging fruit techniques, automation techniques, stuff like that. Just remember, that for every stop Google is trying to implement, a work around is also being implemented and tested. It wil never be a perfect system for the end user.