tedster - 11:40 pm on Feb 7, 2007 (gmt 0)

No, not Local Rank exactly (I never thought that) but a calculation or algorithmic process that is similar. Some kind of last-step that re-rank the original results.

In one case I know of, the signs of this problem disappeared with one solid new inbound link from a very different domain, with the problematic phrase used as the anchor text. By "very different" I mean the linking domain was not in the 1,000 for the given search.

So, not less "SEO" fixed it, but more. The purely OOP assumptions don't sit right with me, given this anecdotal result. Now it's only one case, so it's certainly not "proof" of anything, but the fix has now been stable for several data refreshes at Google, so it is a decent data point to keep in mind.