[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/04/google_bigdaddy_chaos/|The Register]:

Webmasters have been seething at Google since it introduced its 'Big Daddy' update in January, the biggest revision to the way its search engine operates for years.

Alarm usually accompanies changes to Google's algorithms, as the new rankings can cause websites to be demoted, or disappear entirely. But four months on from the introduction of "Big Daddy," it's clear that the problem is more serious than any previous revision - and it's getting worse.

Webmasters now report sites not being crawled for weeks, with Google returning old pages, and failing to return results for phrases that used to bear fruitful search results.

[...]

But the new algorithms may not be solely to blame. Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt has hinted at another reason for the recent chaos. In Google's earnings conference call last month, Schmidt was frank about the extent of the problem.

"Those machines are full," he [link|http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/21/business/GOOGLE.php|said]. "We have a huge machine crisis."

[...]

Ouch.

I see another cost coming in the not too distant future - paying to be included in a web index. That's probably a natural progression (e.g. ads in the Yellow Pages), but you know MS would love for that day to come soon so that they could do it for "free" (paying for it out of their monopoly profits as they crush another competitor).

Cheers,
Scott.