I checked some keywords I rank highly for a moment ago, where the top 10 has been extremely stable for years, and found that although my ranking is unchanged I now have two different South African sites showing as #2 and #3 respectively (.co.za).
Curious as to the merits of these sites they both look like a mirror of Google's own "shopping" affiliate pages, with different names and logos of course. Zero unique content, 100% mashup affiliate. The normal sites I usually see in the top 10 with mine are either lower in the ranking or gone entirely for this keyword set.
What gives ?
If it helps...
- No, I'm not using a proxy
- No, I'm not doing anything I haven't done a thousand times from this computer while searching
- No, I'm not logged into my Google account (can't be if I want natural results)
edit: It might be helpful if I mentioned being U.S. (.com) based.
[edited by: Sgt_Kickaxe at 3:02 am (utc) on Aug 27, 2011]
