> Tangentially, this induces an obvious concern about cheat and cheat-detection arms races.
This exists in every domain, and is - perhaps - inevitable. Look at what SEO has done to web search.
This exists in every domain, and is - perhaps - inevitable. Look at what SEO has done to web search.
It's no different, since we have no control over Google's ranking mechanism and they won't explicitly tell you what the algorithm is (and change the rules daily), so it's just guesswork.
Baffling an entire colossal "industry" is built from guesswork.