I have noticed that some sites in the same nice as mine have gotten prefererential google ranking treatment. Some of these sites only have a 7 month old domain with only a few backlinks yet they are able to rank for tons of competitive keywords with ease. Anyone else notice this? We know that aged, old, authority sites can and do rank well but I'm seeing A LOT of instanced where nwer sites that lack authority status are able to rank for everything without having to go through the waiting process. And the ranking are permanent as well. its not like they get put into some sandbox.
If you apply SEO to a set of keywords you may improve your rankings for those keywords but I'm seeing instances where the ranking boost is applied to ALL keywords regardless if they targeted through SEO efforts or not. Just mentioning the keyword and p00f top ten.
I actually like to see newer sites replace old, sometimes irrelevant dinosaur sites. Of course it sucks when it happens to you, just try and shake things up with some changes in keyword titles and what not.