ODP results on AOL...a lottery?

[bartek]

I need some insight on how AOL sorts the 100% scoring sites.
Last week we were #2 out of 94516 for our main 2 word phrase. This week we dropped to 260+. The first 300 results (us included) are reported as a 100% match.

Are these results randomly scrambled or is there a method in this madness? We *really* liked being #2 :)

[JamesR]

Bartek, right before your drop in ranking, do you see any evidence of an AOL spider in your log files?

[seth_wilde]

I've noticed this too, It seems as though they rotate results when there are multiple 100% listings but I haven't been able to come up with any pattern yet.

[bartek]

All visits from AOL are the usual cache-xx##.proxy.aol.com and their IP's. For the life of me I can't figure out what they do to sort out the 100% results. Looked at size, age, IP's, names, titles, desc., keywords and density, link pop and I still see no pattern whatsoever. It's driving me nuts :(