born2drv - 8:51 am on Sep 28, 2002 (gmt 0)

I think Google has gotten much more smarter in determining which links are there for the benefit of page rank and rank manipulation, and which are there for honest reasons.

I worked very hard to exchange links with over 50 quality sites themed to me, and requested anchor text which is not in any way deceptive or spammy (usually just my site name plus a word or two). I also do not use any SEO techniques in anyway, other than to build many seperate pages filled with unique content, have it load fast, easy to navigate, etc. But this is not SEO, it is WSO (web surfer optimisation). Consequently, my ranking has shot up through the roof. These sites linking to me have a small links page, (not 50 pages of thousands of recip. links), and they descriminate about who they put in and what the link text is. These are not powerhouse link pages, just PR3-6.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google is trying to distinguish between sites with PR6-9 and tons of links with little content and PR3-6 smaller-guy type sites with tons of content that link out of goodwill with modest linkage and consider their anchor text to be honest representations of the site being linked to. If I was Google, that's what I would do.

Google is the king of link analysis, if they think you're doing something unnatural in obtaining links, they have probably put you in some sort of a penalty.