Hi guys,
I've seen this as well off and on - in a search for 'traduttore inglese', which means 'English translator' in Italian, on google.it the first placed site has had those extra links for about a year. It's a free site that uses the translator as a honey trap.
I haven't found the answer, but one thing did strike me - has anyone noticed where the actual text for those links has come from? Not the page title, not the page name, and not the headings on the page...
First up I thought perhaps they could have come from the keywords where they ranked first or well on other searches, but that doesn't seem to bear out. Though I haven't checked this out, I presume they come from the link anchor text, but that would probably mean they also rank well as I had thought above...maybe the on-page factors weren't up to par.
(Re-reading that last sentence it has occurred to me that with a bit of algebra and enough examples, might it in theory be able to work backwards and find the ratio of importance for on-page versus off-page - links and anchor text - factors for ranking....that is if my theory holds true....hmmm)
Back on topic...I thought when I first saw the phenomenon that it was because of their sub-domains but the examples you've al given so far don't seem to back that up. So my best guess is from links and anchor text from other search terms where they rank well (that would be the logical source of the text snippets, and would also explain the sense of 'authority', or at least popularity) tested out in beta over the last year and only for the top site....what say you?
Take care
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