netmeg - 8:37 pm on Feb 9, 2013 (gmt 0)

one or two terms hardly constitutes an authority

It's a lot more than that, but most of them don't have more than the top four listings.

it comes from having a million plus pages

When the well funded run out of $$$

I see tons of crowding (my own sites and other sites) that have fewer than a thousand pages. I still think it's authority. That's not to say Google has it right every time, but I think that's why they're doing it.

Also, by this and other comments, it seems like you think one needs to be well funded (or VC funded) in order to generate these millions of pages. Anyone can make millions of thin pages for less than a couple hundred bucks. It takes money (or time, or both) to make that many *good* pages.

And if they're good pages, they probably belong there.