New and Improved Google

Google has announced a change in its algorithms that will clear out some of the link-farm spam generated by over-zealous SEO operators:

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

Some description and commentary here: Reuters GMSV. Google also recently announced personal blocklists, which can also cut down on the noise.