> Which brings us to the elephant in the room: what are Google's motives behind this (clearly intentional) change?

They are maximising ad revenue, not the search relevance/usefulness.

I was looking forward to seeing someone else share this opinion. So the google behavior is driving some users away, im wondering why others are sticking with it? I propose that in the course of professional contact we should strive to avoid use of google as a verb. Yes i know its not slick to say, "Perform a search - using the search engine." instead of, "Google it."; but it starves a mentality, i think it would disconnect the G-word from the perceived face of the internet, The whole point is a monopoly eventually gets out of hand and starts screwing its users, to its own benefit, due to largesse of the users. If google is to improve itself, We the users have to force it to by ignoring it and going elsewhere, This i think starts by RE-Realizing, as a herd, that there is choice other than the Alaughabet search engine [aka google].

> I propose that in the course of professional contact we should strive to avoid use of google as a verb.

Stopped using "google" as a verb a long, long time ago, in favor of just saying "search". I don't think that's ever confused anyone.

One possibility is that Google hasn't gotten worse, but the spammers have come up with new techniques that Google hasn't adapted to.

Maybe bad organic results lead to more ad clicks.

Most definitely. But the folk at Google are very smart, very rich, and already run the most lucrative ad platform in the world. Wouldn't hamstringing their flagship product for the sake of a few extra $B/yr harm them in the long run as more and more users switch to other search engines? They had to have considered that and made the change anyway. What's the endgame? I don't feel it's more ad clicks.

What makes you think they wouldn't? Everything else google seems to do is in the interest of short term profits. Look at all the great products they've shut down simply because they weren't all that profitable.

It's my opinion that a large portion of the websites on the front page of any search (quora and pinboard anyone) are completely bought and paid for.

I think the endgame ends up very close to same everytime this sort of thing happens. corp gets good people like it, then they get rich and take on investors. when stocks and investors get involved, then there is an expectation of an ever increasing >RATE< of profit. if that rate decrases then stocks are dropped, and if this goes on long enough, the corp is so interested in maximum profits over a shrinking timeslice that it basically takes all and gives nothing in return, that is the point when it is no longer a service, and exodus begins. [myspace]