Recent Algorithm Change

[GregWalt]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

These are just some things to think about.....

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What do you think has happened with the algo and why are all these new/weak sites all of the sudden scoring so high in an extremely competitive market?

Probably because the webmasters in this space were using SEO.    

Sites that were hammering the anchor text pre-Penguin are probably toast today.  And if we talk like biologists... "After a mass extinction new species will explode into vacated niches."

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PR/PA/DA do NOT any longer seem to matter.

I can't remember ever seeing a SERP where Google rankings match PR/PA/DA metrics.  Since penguin and panda, (and Google being in love with big sites and brands)  in my opinion, this conformance declined even more.

The most common post title in Q&A is...  "This site with a lower PR/PA/DA is beating me.. WHY!"

So, this does not surprise me.

[vmialik]

Boulder SEO stood out to me, being the weakest of the pack

http://www.bkmediagroup.com/boulder-seo   PR (0)  PA (17)      boulder seo

So I looked in a bit, and even thought the PR is (0) Domain Rank is 5, and Domain authority still holds some weight.

[AidanMcCarthy]

Mmmhhh,

We're seeing a similar effect in competitive search in Sydney, the term 'website designers' brings up relatively weak sites, few if any of which appear to be optimised for that particular query though they are for closely related searches.

Has G vastly reduced the influence of backlinks and turned up the over-optimisation filters?