Links = Rank Old Google (pre-Panda) was to some degree largely the following: links = rank. Once you had enough links to a site you could literally pour content into a site like water and have the domain's aggregate link authority help anything on that site rank well quickly. As much as PageRank was hyped & important, having a diverse range of linking domains and keyword-focused anchor text were important. Brand = Rank After Vince then Panda a site's brand awareness (or, rather, ranking signals that might best simulate it) were folded into the ability to rank well. Panda considered factors beyond links & when it first rolled out it would clip anything on a particular domain or subdomain. Some sites like HubPages shifted their content into subdomains by users. And some aggressive spammers would rotate their entire site onto different subdomains repeatedly each time a Panda update happened.…