In 2008, Eric Schmidt let slip that Google would use brands as a signal to clean up the "internet cesspool. SEOs ears twitched. Quoted by CNET at the time: Web crawlers aren't particularly good at making judgments about the truthiness of digital matter, and the wisdom of the crowd can't keep up with the river of data streaming online. Schmidt gave the magazine publishers hope for their future. Brands, he said, are the way to rise above the cesspool.