AndyA - 1:20 pm on Mar 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

Unless you can prove it, it's not going anywhere. With so many other penalty possibilities you can't prove anything.

I think the proof would be when a unique site name is searched for. If the site is in the index, there is no logical or relevant reason why it shouldn't appear #1 for its own name. Yet many are buried, listed under scraper sites and sites that mention the site searched for. There is no logical reason for this, other than Google is broken.

I can't think of any scenario where a site that MENTIONS another would have more relevance than the actual site. Even if a small hobby site named handmadebluewidgets.com was mentioned on CNN, a search for handmade blue widgets should still return the site itself, not CNN.

Just my opinion, I suppose everyone has a different expectation of what's relevant and what's not, but when I search for a site by name I expect to find that site, not sites that mention it.