search engines, blogging and the enterprise known as spam

In Spam + Blogs = Trouble, there was no mention of the search engines responsibility or response to splogs, spam sites, or anything which manipulates search algorithms. Early in web history, specifically in Google's history, web searches were a new and innovative way to get around the net and get exposed in the net. Since the "formula" for google and other search engines' algorithms has been revealed, splogs have an easy time creating link farms to harvest net surfers.

Is it not time for search engines to repair their models for searching the internet? When I search for something, it seems like it is becoming increasingly difficult to find anything pertinent on the net because my search results are dictated by "popularity" instead of by relevance. Perhaps search engines should re-evaluate their data collection methods.