This morning while brushing my teeth I began thinking of the topic of Panda.
I asked myself, was it aimed at fighting back at "content farms" who target the algorithm to build out content for searchers? Most say yes. If so, then is that a spam fighting technique? Most might say yes.
My question is probably what most Googlers involved in search deal with every day.
Is fighting search spam the same thing as improving search relevance? It is like asking the question, is a good defense better than a good offense.
You have to imagine that if you are constantly battling those trying to knock you down, then how much resources can you put into new and improved relevancy technology? Or is fighting spammers a relevancy tactic by itself.
A company like Google has enough resources to work on both the offense and the defense. But where should they allocate more resources towards? Where should companies that are smaller, such as Blekko or Duck Duck Go allocate resources towards?
Again, I am sure these search companies have a clearer picture of what the proper answer is. But when you think about it from a searcher or SEO point of view, it does start to make you think.
I'd also recommend reading a NY Times opinion article named Google's War on Nonsense.
Get thinking and do comment below.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Webmaster Help.