So here’s the thing. Google’s changing their search results criteria…again…only this time it’s not just their guarded/hated algorithm. In a recent Cnet article, Why Google is ditching search, author Peter Yared describes the trend of Google away from organic search results and toward paid (which we already knew about) and their newer answers feature. Believe it or not, instead of offering up your well-thought-out, expertise-filled articles, Google’s thrown their hands up at the whole thing and decided to just answer your question themselves.

Working with my spouse often makes for some interesting conversations. Over breakfast, he spoke about all the different programs and things he was playing with. Programs like Linux, Red Hat, and Fedora. At the end of the conversation, he commented that in 2012, those programs would never have been called by those names. Their developers, in an effort to increase their ranking in Google, would have called them things like Operating System v3.4, and Free Operating System v3.4.

You know, I have been designing and programming for the web since 1993. I admit that in all that time I have never come over to liking javascript. I’ve come around on flash for certain things, but never javascript and it’s not just because coding it gives me a headache. It just never seemed to be worth the trade-off in security, accessibility, or in SEO, yet over the years, more and more sites have come to rely completely on it to deliver even basic functionality.