willybfriendly - 2:36 am on Aug 30, 2010 (gmt 0)

One SERP I am very familiar with has 1 1994 .txt file at #9. In the past, this one shoed up only when G was trying to "get it right" (i.e. it would drift in and out during dances, or when knobs were given a significant turn). It has now been sitting their happily for 2+ months.

Being a .txt file it has no title, description, nor even any html. No outbound links. Nothing but exactly what you would expect in a .txt generated in notepad.

It is an "authority" site in as much as it is a subdomain of a .edu university site. It (the subdomain) also benefits from many, many well aged links - but not so many fresh ones from what I can tell, nor does it show any editorial activity to speak of since 2002.

There might be some clues in there for the astute observer...