brinked - 12:10 am on Nov 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

I agree .........google isn't interested in questionable sites and giving them a chance period.

Mal. There are filters and trip wires everywhere. There are so many factors that can make google think a site is spam and/or does not deserve to rank high.

Lets say for example there is a website called widgetforwidget.com. Widget for widget is very close to getting a big penalty from google, automatically due to its generous use of the word "widgets" on its site and its very un natural looking backlink profile (lets say 90% sitewide links which all have the same anchor). So widgetforwidget.com is about a few sitewide backlinks away from getting penalized, so google moves it up, temporarily removing any filters already in place that may be knocking it down and wants to find out "maybe this site is of actual high quality, so lets put it to the test"

Also, not to mention Matt Cutts always talks about "questionable sources" in regards to backlinks. Google knows there are questionable sites that should not be ranking. I am glad you function in a niche where you dont see any spammy sites. Consider yourself lucky.