martinibuster - 5:19 pm on Nov 20, 2012 (gmt 0)

HuskyPup, I think the word Authority is imperfect. We are referencing it in terms of PageRank.

You can think of it this way, that when a site is hit with Panda, it's PageRank, the web page's standing in the algo, is diminished. With the diminution comes it's inability to rank for phrases. If a site is unable to rank for phrases, it follows that other pages will come in to take it's place.

Naturally, it would be preferable for Google to suppress pages that are duplicates/stolen.