walkman - 3:30 am on Jul 14, 2011 (gmt 0)

Walmart and the likes have "Blogger teams" for example that blog about their patron Saints. Or give coupons and giveaways for a "Like," tweet, and soon +1. Or have dozens and dozens of PR people that know /pay journos to create news whenever they want. An average business simple can't compete if G turns the brand power so much that individual pages no longer matter. You may find a pocket of oxygen but that's temporary, it will run out. If a mediocre big brand page drowns your top page, it's over, especially since even long tails are going to the top sites more and more.

My personal opinion (really more of a guess) is that this is more evidence that the death of Page Rank has been exaggerated in these forums. I really think that big brands get big links simply due to the fact that they are so well recognized, and thus ordinary people are more willing to link to them.

This is a 2-3 year phenom, even more with Panda. Did they really get that many more links, all of the sudden?