Planet13 - 6:44 pm on Apr 29, 2011 (gmt 0)

I agree that Panda is a replacement for Page rank - it kind of reminds me of that on a sitewide basis.

Not in the two verticals that I watch closely. The top sites all rank well because of "unnatural" linking, namely;

reciprocal links
forum/blog spamming
article directories
"SEO Directories" (directories that specifically state that people should submit to them to increase their Page Rank, and charge a nominal fee ~US $20 to get listed.)
Site network interlinking (same owner has several sites that link to one another)

Stayed up until 3:00 looking at about 8,000 total links to my competitors and less than 1% would be considered "freely given" links - I would say it is close to about .25%.

While that is disheartening to someone like me who has a site with low page rank, I realize that I can play their game better than they can, so it won't be long...