One thing I've been curious about, doesn't Panda prioritize Google's view of what the web "should" be like? Not everybody is searching for articles or blog posts, and penalizing sites that aren't in the business of providing large amounts of unique original information (such as e-commerce sites or gaming sites) seems a bit unfair.
I thought this way for the longest time too. There are two factors to consider here - Firstly, that if your running an online business, Goog would really rather you paid them for the top spot than paying us SEO monkeys. There may be an attitude that Natural listings is for information, Adwords is for commerical at play there. That'd be the tin foil hat SEO's perspective, anyway. I don't necessarily believe it, but I can see the argument.
The observation I ended up making, though, was that if a vertical is such that none of the players can offer much content outside of their sales pitches (and those niche's do exist) then Goog cannot use this sort of fresh content as a ranking signal. So therefore, other signals gain dramatically in significance. I had a client who hadn't touched a single page on his site for years, however good linkbuilding meant he ranked because his existing content was the most 'evergreen' in his niche.
Of course, the flipside is, if I were competing with him, was better at this game than I am, and I could work out an effective content strategy, I would of beaten, um, me, into the ground. In the long run, if you don't work out how to do it, someone else will.
Also, really interesting read and thread, this. Thanks Vanessa, there's some really useful insights here.
