I think the role of a search engine is to index the page, and to help users find what they're looking for. It's a difficult task that requires somehow quantifying relevance of answers for a given text string.
Whatever quantification is used is an implicit kind of 'censorship', and the 'relevance' of results for a given string is inherently a value-judgement. That's where the value of a search engine comes from. We choose search engines based off how good its value judgements are.
So, I wish DDG released more details here, because this announcement otherwise just sounds like standard practice. Abusing "quirks in the algorithm" is just called SEO, and it's been a cat-and-mouse battle between search-engines and abuse. Without details, it's harder to interpret this move generously.
That sounds about right. A search engine has to try and intuit what users are going to want. Decisions have to be made to show one thing above another. In order for us to trust the engine though, we should have a way of knowing what values are referred to when making these decisions.
Whatever quantification is used is an implicit kind of 'censorship', and the 'relevance' of results for a given string is inherently a value-judgement. That's where the value of a search engine comes from. We choose search engines based off how good its value judgements are.
So, I wish DDG released more details here, because this announcement otherwise just sounds like standard practice. Abusing "quirks in the algorithm" is just called SEO, and it's been a cat-and-mouse battle between search-engines and abuse. Without details, it's harder to interpret this move generously.