Just some guesses: (a) increase profit (b) maximise stock price (c) increase CEOs bonus (d) all of the further.

There is simply no such thing as a "search engine" - there is a "profit generating engine" using search options to generate that profit. Google doesn't want you to find anything. They just use the fact that you are (sometimes - often enough to come back) finding what you search for as the vehicle to generate the profit. Except for that purpose the quality of their search algorithm is of no concern for them.

I mean: we all had to share the infrastructure "roads" with our vehicles, so we created some rules (traffic laws) and chipped all in to enforce them (by paying the police from our taxes). Of course, such things are pure socialism and will never work. The free market can take care of such things far better and exactly how much better it can do that is the state of affairs we encounter with Google (and all the others) today. On one hand the algorithms are sadly broken because nobody is (genuinely - that is, as a primary motive) interested to make them work and on the other hand everybody is convinced that it is better to be found, no matter how. How often i have searched for "X" and gotten a website dealing only with "Y" because some ultra-cool kid thought that being found for "X" AND "Y" generates more traffic than only being found for "Y" alone i cannot count. So, the system is absolutely free (read: FUBAR) from both sides now and isn't that great? "Freedom" means we are free from the means of using things - what a great new world!

bakunin