  Many fixed-parameter tractable algorithms using a bounded search tree have
been repeatedly improved, often by describing a larger number of branching
rules involving an increasingly complex case analysis. We introduce a novel and
general search strategy that branches on the forbidden subgraphs of a graph
class relaxation. By using the class of $P_4$-sparse graphs as the relaxed
graph class, we obtain efficient bounded search tree algorithms for several
parameterized deletion problems. We give the first non-trivial bounded search
tree algorithms for the cograph edge-deletion problem and the trivially perfect
edge-deletion problems. For the cograph vertex deletion problem, a refined
analysis of the runtime of our simple bounded search algorithm gives a faster
exponential factor than those algorithms designed with the help of complicated
case distinctions and non-trivial running time analysis [21] and computer-aided
branching rules [11].
