> But that's the most relevant motivation I can think of for this change.
Really? You think "a sneaky way to penalize pirate sites" is a more relevant motivation than "help users find information more easily by trying to filter out sites that have so many ads they obscure content"?
Yes. The latter motivation is not at all timely. I don't see any reason for Google to be more concerned about it than they have been for the last five years.
> Yes. The latter motivation is not at all timely. I don't see any reason for Google to be more concerned about it than they have been for the last five years.
So you're under the assumption that Google implemented every quality-related change to the core ranking algorithms - every change they ever wanted - 5 years ago, and now they just sit around and react to politics.
Really? You think "a sneaky way to penalize pirate sites" is a more relevant motivation than "help users find information more easily by trying to filter out sites that have so many ads they obscure content"?