Voasi - 7:39 pm on Feb 20, 2009 (gmt 0)

My only question is whether the influence is from offline or possible some other factor - such as unlinked brand mentions, or social media buzz

Yea, I wonder if it's combination of authority status and social media buzz. Even if Google went that route, I would think a lot of users would not like the SERPs for too long. A lot of the "big boys" have horribly designed websites and I could see the bounce rate coming more into play.

And if "brands" are more important, should linking be more focused on building the brand (anchor text just site name) and just sprinkle in a few targeted anchor text links?

[edited by: Voasi at 7:40 pm (utc) on Feb. 20, 2009]