Google seems to have conflicting priorities. On one hand, they appear to be the all-loving benevolent indexers, content to stay in the background, the original idea being that they could figure out natural behavior online and use that behavior to display the most relevant information on any given query. At least that’s how I always thought a search engine was supposed to work.
 
On the other hand, Google seems to be contradicting this when they release guidelines which dictate behavior. If a webmaster honestly believes he or she is running his or her site in good faith, within proper ethical guidelines, it seems unfair for Google to force them to change in order to remain in the index.
 
In some ways, it seems like Google is hell-bent on leveraging their overwhelming market share in search to shape relevancy as they see fit. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Google demanding you to be relevant while then commanding you to be relevant in their way? Isn’t there something wrong with that? What is Google’s message really… “We’re looking for relevance” or “You will be assimilated”?