Graywolf’s nofollow FUD post has all the elements of a linkworthy rant: it’s long, it’s well documented and it’s angry (or seething underneath). With all this FUD thrown our way, I get the feeling that we’re closer to breaking the Google code than Matt gives us credit for. All the talk about 1,000,000 ranking factors, broken site: and link: operators, yesfollow/notrust vs nofollow/yestrust…these smokescreens still work to some extent but with so many brilliant Web engineers shifting focus and jumping the AdSense ship, is it safe to say that it’s only just a matter of time before the code is broken?

The only true spam killer would be to add greater ranking weight to personalization. Having a personalized search first and link popularity second system would shift the balance of power from reverse engineering to user-centered SEO.

Widespread personalization will doom traditional rank checking. The question won’t be ‘Does my site rank No. 1?’ but rather ‘For what percentage of searchers does my site rank No. 1′ or ‘What was my average ranking yesterday?’ . . . [I]t’s the biggest change in search marketing since paid search.

Without a reliable means of rank checking, traditional SEO loses its foundations for optimization decisions …. Without a reliable means of rank checking, traditional SEO … loses its metrics for determining its success or failure.

Greg Linden hits the high note perfectly with this personalized search post:

“Winner takes all” encourages spam. When spam succeeds in getting the top slot, everyone sees the spam. It is like winning the jackpot.

If different people saw different search results — perhaps using personalization based on history to generate individualized relevance ranks — this winner takes all effect should fade and the incentive to spam decline.

Even if adoption is slow, the direction is clearly towards personalization.