How is it obvious that what happened to Metafilter isn't right? I'm inclined to be sympathetic when any non-spammy site is hit by a Google penalty, but what's the basis used for determining that Metafilter is deserving of a particularly high ranking above where it's at right now?
The only thing I've seen are a few opinions stating that Metafilter is great. That doesn't make it so to the majority of web users.
It's not just that MetaFilter's own ranking has dropped. If that were the case, then you might argue that it was just the algorithm doing its job.
But Google has clearly miscategorized MetaFilter as a content farm or linkspam site, and is actively telling other sites that it is penalizing them for outbound links from MetaFilter that it has categorized as spam, even in cases where those links are clearly not spam.
Excellent point. I didn't put together the link designation with the likelihood that Google had put Metafilter into a spam penalty box. I simply hadn't considered that a possibility given Metafilter's reputation.
Every time I read about this Metafilter situation, I cringe in thinking about how horrible Answers.com is with the abusive tactics they employ now when it comes to displaying content / answers. And yet they remain non-penalized; historically they're one of AdSense's biggest publishers, always found that interesting.
The only thing I've seen are a few opinions stating that Metafilter is great. That doesn't make it so to the majority of web users.