Google and the inland whale

Google has recently revamped its search algorithms in an effort to deliver higher quality results. This follows a drumbeat of complaints during the latter part of last year. The tech press was confirming what we'd been suspecting: some companies were gaming Google to have their content placed higher on the prized first page of search results.
Normally, Google is quiet about how they do what they do. They go about their nerdly business, refining their current products and letting new products and features drift out without much fanfare. This is the natural temperament for engineering-driven companies, letting the work speak for itself.
It's also a very dangerous business strategy for a couple of reasons. Good products, even the best products, need marketing in the better sense of the word. Work generally only speaks for itself to like-minded audiences. Digital built incomparably wonderful products based on technological concepts decades ahead of popular acceptance. Digital is now in a museum where people wonder what could have been. AltaVista, DEC's pioneering search engine, was a showcase for its hardware's prowess. It was so underappreciated that it was several after it was too late before they could get their own domain name.
The other reason that an engineering focus is troublesome is that it can be insular. Marketing, when done well, brings in fresh ideas as well promoting products and services. Marketing identifies the problems that current or potential customers are trying to solve. Without that stream of fresh water, companies build what's interesting to themselves. (See  AltaVista.)
Google is trying to learn some of those lessons. They've put Matt Cutts, a senior engineer at Google, as the public face for the company's campaign to showcase better search results. (See Official Google Blog: Finding more high-quality sites in search .)
A major part of Google's reworked search techniques is an effort to deal with what are termed content farms: web sites that gather mediocre content and, through a variety of techniques, promote the hell out of them so that their search rank is typically in the top 20. The recent IPO of Demand Media, widely regarded as the major farmer in this content area, has heighten the stakes. (See Fast Company's of Demand Media The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model | Magazine for more insight into the their strategy and tactics.)
So the battle is joined - Google trying to provide old-school, curated, high-quality search results against content companies who are cranking out truckloads of good-enough material.
Google has retaken control, for now, although not in all arenas. Recently, I needed to find a few pictures of Phillipston, Mass. A Google search for Phillipston MA brought some pretty good results. Pretty good results. For example, the Phillipston, MA - Local Guide to the Town site included this photo in its gallery of Phillipston pictures:

I can't wait until the ice goes out from the lake so we can go whale watching.