HuskyPup - 1:51 pm on Jul 27, 2011 (gmt 0)

My wife keeps asking me what we can learn from it and, seriously, I'm thinking I don't think we can.

Correct, and therein lies the entire problem. I have some sites completely untouched yet I have others using the same parameters which have been stung badly. I have a new site using the same template layout, ads, IP etc with pages all ranking well and in some cases 10 pages ahead of other older sites and pages I have with far better content.

There seems to be no overall generalisation of what does and does not work, assuming one's site is clean and relatively unique, therefore going around changing things just for the sake of it is, IMHO, pointless.

Try launching a couple of new small sites but present the information differently but still for the visitor, not for Google, and see how they fair.