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Thanks Ryan

Perhaps it is.  Each of the pages is about a different office of the same firm.  So the language is similar.  I am trying to make each page as different as possible to see if it makes a difference.  Any idea how long it will take to get back to where we were?

I see different results when searching on an iPad and when searching on an iPhone.  Two different devices for sure but one is connectiing through my home network and the other through a wireless signal. However, that does not surprise me nearly as much as getting different google results from a single computer when using  IE, FireFox and Chrome.  I also connect remotely to a computer at my office in the same town but with a different ISP and get some differences in results there. I do not believe that there is a standard google anymore. Just like the TV commercials that show very different types of guys using PCs and Macs Google knows this too and serves them different results. Heck.... when I visit websites now that are entirely unrelated to SEO I am seeing SEOmoz ads in the Adsense.   Google recognizes me and serves me Fishkin's ads on the fly.... but somehow the people at Moz have not told Google that I am a member and that they can turn the ads off.    

I haven't checked out the sites but what are the relative registration ages?

Depending on the nature and quality of your content, you may also want to consider removing article pages that might be hurting your domain.

Google collects a ton of information about your browsing habits. If you are pro-Google, then you will accept this collection is used to provide you with the best search results possible. They have the ability to filter results not just by location but pretty much by any factor you can view in Google Analytics. If you type in "Clear browser cache", Google KNOWS what browser you are using and can add the "Firefox" term in on your behalf, without it being apparent to the user. Take a close look at the wealth of information offered in GA. I recently searched for some lightbulbs online. Now, whatever said I visit shows lightbulb ads. Google KNOWS I am a possible lightbulb customer. When the CIA wants information on someone, they go to Google.

And the beauty is you have the opportunity to help change that.

Hi Ryan, I have posted the stats for that further down in this thread

I can say with almost absolute certainty that using trademark or restricted symbols isn't going to harm your rankings.

I bet the ranch on user behavior in 2005. I think that links are still valuable.  However, I think that data from social sites, domain queries, domain mentions and visitor behavior are becoming more important.  With that growing importance in these other metrics, links should be a depreciating asset. If google uses links and on-page signals to rank a website - those can all be manipulated by webmasters and SEOs.    That means that SEOs can "own google".  However, once most of google's signal is coming from these "invisible metrics" then google takes back control.

Sure, if you have the relevant data at hand I can get my team to visualize it.

Better looks to prepare a comparative checklist on factors yahoo, bing and google give importance. Repeat the same on competitors will lead you to the final decision.

hahahaha. I agree with you. First Google manipulates results to see if Bing is copying. Soon after this update comes with all the care that is creating its own content sites optimized for the robots and we can not think of duplicate content. hehehehe

You are most welcome.

From my testing (and I do a fair bit of that) I conclude that links still outweigh every other signal. Though it would make perfect sense that newly introduced hints steal a bit of link graph's glory until it's put in a fair place with everything else. I notice Matt Cutts still talks about links a great deal in his videos which confirms my view that links are still going strong. What puzzles me is how strongly they treat exact anchor text, when in natural world we rarely see it happen, it's usually click here, or read more or just plain website address. This is the area I believe needs fixing sooner than others. Back to the original topic... once links stop being a super-signal content and function will rule.

Hi, totally agree with 128K, great resource there, but here is also something interesting to add in the mix: Bing gets data from the results that people click on the Google SERPs when using Internet Explorer... in other words: Bing copies Google http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html In the long run they both be looking at the same signals, so the times of optimizing differently for both are pretty much over.

One thing many clients do is compare search results when logged in to results when logged out. So to see where you're really at, get going with SEOmoz Pro. After you take care of that content issue or fix whatever problem you're having, you can ask for site reconsideration here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843\. Hope that helps.

Google made over 500 changes to their algorithm last year. Each change affects different sites in different ways. I would be more concerned if your sites rankings were not fluctuating to be honest. There is nothing weird, unusual or wrong with bouncing around the serps. Just keeping doing tried and tested seo techniques and you will be fine.