tedster - 6:37 pm on Aug 6, 2012 (gmt 0)

I believe there is a designed bias for brands, though, obviously for profits.

Lots of people believe that - but I don't see why there even needs to be a design bias, nor do I see how it would help profits.

What helps profits for any business (including yours) is catering to the user and customer preferences - and that's all that Google ever needs to do. The result is just what we see in the SERPs, and they don't even need to maintain a manual list of "who is a brand". The algorithm just starts to reward any website as it grows in "brandedness".

In other words, "don't make it personal", because Google certainly doesn't.

If we want to do a clear-eyed analysis of our SEO efforts, then we need to drop that kind of "explanation" because it doesn't help anything. In fact, it doesn't give us anything actionable as a conclusion and that's what real analysis should result in: an action plan.