We all know how PageRank works, right?
Google assigns a value to a page based upon the inbound links.
However, some people have been noticing a change in Google recently. The authority of the site on which a page appears to now carry more weight.
The debate is about whether this is due to a new authority score in the PageRank also, called Agent Rank, or if something else is causing it - for example, inbound linking and domain age carry more weight than they have done previously. Perhaps something else.
Here's the documentation about Agent Rank:
http://tinyurl.com/2zjb8q
To summarize, this new patent assigns a score based on the reputation of each individual author ("agent"). An author with a higher score carries more ranking weight. Author could also refer to a trusted domain. Agent Rank appears to require digital signatures in order to work.
Two questions for you:
Have you been seeing "authoritive domains" carrying more weight than they did previously in the serps you watch? i.e. Wikipedia.
Do you think that linking scores have changed recently?