ridgway - 2:26 am on Dec 29, 2007 (gmt 0)

Studied this issue on a cluster of four long established sites.

Site #1: 2-word primary term for home page, was #2, down to #6. 2001 site, very few new links, no GA, phrase is in domain (key-phrase-word-word.com), does not use nofollow. 3.48 million competing pages.

Site #2: 2-word primary term for home page, was #1, still #1. 2004 site, very few new links, no GA, phrase is in domain (key-phrase-word-word.com), does not utilize nofollow, on same server as Site #1 above. 460k competing pages.

Site #3: 2-word primary term. had indented #1/#2 listings, now indented at #6/#7, (both pages pr5 TBPR) one of the two words in is domain name (word-keyprase.com), this site gets a steady stream of new links spread around on many pages, but few with targeted anchor to either of the two listed pages recently. does use some nofollow, no GA. This site is on a dedicated server not related to sites #1/#2 above. Note: can't find any other 2-word terms affected on the site. 2001 domain with 3000+ indexed pages. 513k competing pages for this term.

Site #4:2001 domain, 2 and 3 word primary terms, home page for both pushed from top 3 to #6. no new links for over a year. Site is an old ecomm that basically sits. no keyphrases in domain name. (compoundword.com) Low quality shared hosting on server unrelated to above three sites. No nofollow, no GA. 1.6 million competing for two-word phrase and 257k for 3-word phrase.

Data Points:

1. Do not believe it's a slow loading pages issue. Three sites on three separate servers took it at the same time, while a fourth, on one of the same servers, did not.

2. On page factors. Site #2 above changed content recently, and it was quickly spidered and indexed. Did not budge in serps.

3. The effect seems to be targeted phrases, and not specific pages. for site #3 above, the singular of the primary term returns as #1/#2, as well as returning #1/#2 using any of the common modifiers (ie location blue widgets, style blue widgets, outdoor blue widgets, indoor blue widgets)

4. Studying sites above site #2 above, I am seeing many obvious paid links in 4 of the 5 sites.

5. Don't usually pay much attention, but seems G is reporting many fewer pages for competing pages on some searches.

....scratching head....
....quizzical look....