Clint If by content you mean static info then... agreed, things aren't what they used to be. Bad news for SEOs, good news for sites using multimedia. The more nimble little guys are beating most of the big guys who don't "get" online video, blogging or Social anything and are more apt to go to an agency for creative components.

As to the blackhat advantage... agreed there are too many in "partnership" with Google. AdCent$ pays the piper and the blackhats have figured out that using AdCent$ garners all the trust you need so lots can be achieved with fewer links. Google trusts Google "partners" is very evident when you look at country indexes like Canada and the relevant related SERPs commonly found at the bottom of a Google SERP. I don't think it is a co-incidence that there are a lot of Made for AdCent$ sites and "bigbox" marketing partners like eBay Amazon etal in those results, or were, I guess they are cleaning up the MFA to some extent during the recent update.

IMO, using authority links to drive rankings is a passing technique that has seen it's best days. It's now about video, blogging, podcasting and Social communities. The more Google content pipes you tap the better you'll do. Contextually optimizing the audio-visual content will separate the good from the bad SEOs in the future. The good news is these techniques enhance the site for those with physical impairment and/or slow connections. Developing and implementing these "crawl-ability" strategies is where this industry has kicked the big guys A$$es time and again!

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