backdraft7 - 4:17 pm on Feb 10, 2013 (gmt 0)

So again, this begs the question, what constitutes an "authority" site?
Some say it's the number and quality of inbound links.

From back in 2006, Google stated:

- Domain name to match part of the meta title. - Have IBL's from authority sites including company name [ Quality sites and high PR sites ] - Have unique content - Age of site - Comply with webmaster guidelines

Clearly that's no longer the case, especially the age and domain match meta title tag part.

We were an authority for many years before being eclipsed by (one in particular) sites.
The sheer volume of their indexed pages is what shut us out.

I myself have created an account on the site in question and added a handful of our best photos. If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em, I say. The funny part is that now for one of my top key phrases, I am still #1, however, it's my account on THEIR site that's #1, not my site. That's hilarious!
Bing however still has my site as #1.

Don't get me wrong, the model for these sites that have had meteoric success is brilliant.

My concern is that the webmasters who created the sites were focused more on search engine performance and that's a NO-NO today, right?. In particular, these sites seem to violate the specific quality guidelines that Google puts forth, like "loading pages with irrelevant keywords" and user generated spam. Some are already using these sites as a conduit for spamming the search engines. Need examples? I can show you a bunch!

My other concern is that Google is currently willing or unable to distill these results down to fewer listings, which would improve diversity from other sites, something that HORDE is supposed to do.

This isn't an axe grinding session on Google or the DC sites, I'm just trying to get an insight into this apparent Achilles heal. If history is any guide, I suspect it will be resolved eventually. But for now, it's definitely not a good user experience.