The_Contractor - 2:31 pm on Jun 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

One possible factor is that the site that was spared is about 9 years old while the smaller one is about 5 years old.

How old are the sites dominating that niche?

I have found that to be the factor in what I am seeing compared to "size". Large sites in my opinion have always faired better with Google in the past - not this time. Seeing several single-page sites or single pages on unrelated sites/domains that are 7-9 years old doing very well - even though they haven't been updated since then. Like I say, have seen pages like "page does not exist" rise a full 20 or so positions and those pages are several years old - why else would a blank page rise in positioning (I know it doesn't have any more backlinks).