SlyOldDog - 12:28 pm on Jun 17, 2004 (gmt 0)

You can't improve the algo go by using page content. That's where we started out. SEO pages are stuffed with keywords.

The fact is Google is caught between a rock and a hard place. They've got a dial that they can turn between anchor text and pagerank. These are the only off page factors they can use in practice.

I don't see how searching for relevance in the vicinity the anchor text can help either. Often links pages have all links for one subject grouped together. This means they would be considered relevant.

Until Google comes up with something else off page they are stuck with what they have.