Site owners most often look at all of this from their viewpoint which is often much different than that of the typical person conducting a search or the way Google must look at it.
A site owner usually wants his or her site to generate as much quality traffic as possible. Being high in the search results can be a big help. Too many of them are under the false impression that having a higher PageRank is the only thing that is needed to get them a better position in the search results of Google.
Some of these site owners have sites that are garbage. These people still want their sites to be as high in the search results as possible. Many of them are willing to do whatever they can think of to try to raise their PageRank in hopes of being higher in the search results, no matter how sneaky it might be.
The typical person conducting a search doesn't know a thing about PageRank and doesn't really care. They want the best possible results for the search they are conducting. They don't want some garbage that is of no benefit to them.
Google makes it a point to keep the people in mind who are conducting searches and does what they can to try to deliver the best possible results. If it gets to the point where enough people feel that Google isn't giving them the results they feel they should be getting and someone else is, then Google could have some very serious problems.
Yes Google is on top right now. But that is no guarantee they will always stay on top. I am sure the leadership at Google remembers AltaVista, just as some of you do.
Site owners often get upset with Google when they take steps they feel must be taken in order to continue to try to deliver the best possible results and even to improve on the search experiences of people conducting searches.
In a perfect world everyone would devote all of their efforts into making the very best site possible and always keep their visitors in mind when doing it. Everyone would link to others because they liked what was there and felt their visitors would find it useful or enjoyable. That would be the only criteria used for linking to someone.
That is the way Google would like to see it and that is the way that would benefit people conducting searches when using a system where links are suppose to count as votes for where the links lead.
When people are doing things to try to manipulate the system, Google must take steps against it. Ignoring what is being done would be ignoring people conducting searchers and the first responsiblity of any search engine is to people using it to conduct searches.
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