On a similar issue, I have a debate going on in my company about SEO
and links coming from IP blocks allocated from different upstream
providers will improve page ranks. (So, if I have block A from
provider 1 and block B from provider 2, web sites linking each other
on block A & B, the rank will go up) Not just different /24, /24s
reassigned from different upstream.I can't find anything to prove or dis-prove this theory. Anyone have
a link or info on this issue/myth?I shared this discussion thread and was told it's only discussing
different /24, not /24 allocated to different providers.As far as I am concerned, if Google used ARIN swip record or routing
entry, it's going to identify us as the end provider so I can't see
how who gave us the IP would matter.
If Google's even vaguely smart, they'll know to use a variety of ways
to automatically determine the closeness of IP addresses, including if
they're announced by the same ASN, have the same RDNS suffix, have any
commonalities in SWIP data, etc.
If I were Google and I were engaged in mere link-counting, I would take
into consideration the statistical figures and note how often a URL is
referenced from the Internet in general. Then, I would look at how
often a URL is referenced from "nearby" URL's, exempting URL's that
are obviously components of the organization's web site, and then I
would have some idea of whether or not someone was trying to game the
system. This is relatively trivial to do, given the sort of data
Google has on the web.
I am not sure I would want to be on a list of sites-that-have-tried-to-
game-Google. Who knows what sort of vengeful damage Google might inflict
on your PageRank. 
(Just kidding Google!) But seriously, just *how*
stupid do people think Google is? They have massive resources and nutso
bright people who have looked at these problems. To think that any
trivially simplistic strategy that's been suggested for *years* now would
have an impact on PageRank strikes me as naive.
... JG