But that's what a ton of other site who were dinged were doing. They'd buy up EMDs, slap a company name on it where "brand name = EMD" and then drive backlinks

But that's what a ton of other site who were dinged were doing. They'd buy up EMDs, slap a company name on it where "brand name = EMD" and then drive backlinks to it with the brand name/EMD in the link text. Many of them dropped quite a bit when this rolled out in 2012. What would make his case different from theirs other than his backlink profile?