@Dog – I agree! It’s total “BullPucky!” But there’s not much we can do about their algorithm.
That said, other sites must have noticed the same thing occurring to them on the day Google put in that algorithm. So maybe we can identify those other sites and set up a cooperative effort to shame Google into removing that algorithm. Not exactly boycott Google, but some sort of banner that shouts, “Google’s content farm algorithm is unfairly penalizing social networking and other high quality sites that people enjoy using.” Perhaps something in the spirit of the SOPA/PIPA protest on the days prior to the blackout.
Like I said above, it used to be that the quality of a site (and, thus, its ranking on search results) was determined by how many other sites linked to a given site, and how many people clicked on the link to a site from the search results. There was no need for Google to change that.
That’s why I think it has more to do with favoriting sites on their search results that align with Google’s vested interest than in ridding their search results of “content farms” and other “low quality” sites.
And if that’s true, the solution is to become a paid advertiser on Google :-/