jimbeetle - 10:20 pm on Sep 28, 2008 (gmt 0)

Oh, I have no doubt that some of those domain-wide factors are at play. It's reading the patents and apps and realizing what the definitions of nodes and documents are that really open my eyes to what might actually be at play in the "secret sauce" side of the algo.

Authority is possibly another. I've been trying to outrank one particular page on a subdomain for several years, and the only reason I can see for its dominance are authority factors related to the domain itself, not even the subdomain.

Yeah, these are the ones that make you think. We know that it's just not a matter of links, but of the quality of the links. I've been convinced for several years that it's not just the quality of *the link*, but the quality of the *links going back several generations*. And the quality of the link can affect both trust and authority.

Relevance comes from having backlinks from sites that have similiar content who also have backlinks from relevant sites.

Missed this as I was posting, but Yowza! Yes, take relevancy back a couple of generations and it sometimes answers the "How the heck is this page ranking?" question. I think we first started seeing this -- or first started to articulate it -- back in 2002 or so. Some folks have mentioned it here and there, but not many people seemed to want to take notice. It's been a well-ignored secret for some time.