Google ain’t that clever (or is there a hidden agenda?)

Alex,

I do know what the options are and I'm certainly not expecting Google to change in any way. I'll be changing my own searching habits as I don't trust Google's results much any more.

Most of the site's pages are indexed (including forum posts with 'em nasty URLs). I haven't optimised but pages there is a lot of content and the interface is light. At code level there is nothing dodgy  going - it's not the cleanest and most compliant code, no, but it's not poor either.

One page that is doing particularly well is a price comparison page on Kelkoo: http://it.kelkoo.com/b/a/sbs/113501/7806233.html

To me this means that Google favours content that is optimised and that it doesn't matter if a site is generic or has a specific content focus.

Back in December following a rather bumpy Google dance a lot of people started crying foul after results changed dramatically.  So it's not only me venting off.

But lets get back to the question, which interests me more than what I am doing right or wrong:

Do you recognise that results are becoming poorer? Could this be part of a strategy to get people using AdWords to achieve results?