Can someone explain the following SEO issue?

[xtrecoolx]

Hi warriors,

I have been following a specific keyword for 3 months. The first website that comes in Google does not have much content (less than 100 words) and has only 5-6 dofollow backlinks between PR2-PR4. The keyword is very competitive. I used dirgio, seospyglass and majesticseo frequently to check his backlinks. For 3 months the links never increased but the guy is still remaining number one. Guys which are number two and three have significant amount of quality backlinks and have a lot of good content.

I have no idea how this guy can be number one based on my SEO knowledge. The only answer I can come up with is that he probably has some very quality backlinks which the SEO tools don't show me. On contrary, his domain is rated PR2 but the second guy is ranked as PR5 and third one is PR2. As I said earlier, the number one guy has less than 100 words so I have no clue what Google thinks about his website.

Any ideas?

[purecapitalist]

PR isn't really an accurate measuring stick for the quality of a site in google's eyes ... it basically means how much "link juice" is pointing to the site, not how high it will rank.

Check the site's age (archive.org) ... there's a good chance his domain is MUCH older than the competition which is the advantage it's using to rank #1.

Another possibility is that the site has many other links that are pointing to his site via a url shortener that 301 redirects to his site. Those links do not show up in any tools.

[xtrecoolx]

Yes his domain was established on 2003 whereas the second guy on 2005. However, I believe the possibility that he is using a url shortener is more valuable then domain age. Is there any way to figure out where he might be getting his links?

[BarryWheeler]

There are many other factors that may be coming into play here. Links / Content are only ones. Domain age, social interaction, etc all come into the formula.

[App Developers]

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense. Need to do further digging if at all possible. I am sure there is more to this story. But many have said the same thing as you and sometimes there is no reason or so it seems. If you figure it out be sure to report back.

[MikeFriedman]

The number of backlinks are not always that important.

You said he has fewer quality backlinks than the site that is #2, but are they all the same anchor text? Site #2 might have more backlinks, but the anchor text of those backlinks may not be targeting the keyword you are looking at.

[xtrecoolx]

The number one site has meaningless anchor text, whereas number two site has perfect anchor texts from edu and gov domains. So nothing makes sense to me.

[packerfan]

Have you evaluated the on-page SEO of the sites?

Is the first site part of an authority site? I know this URL only has 100 words, but if it's part of a huge site, there may be a lot of link juice flowing internally.

Just food for thought...

[xtrecoolx]

Yes I did. The website has only a login form and the rest of the page is %70 image and some text. I even heard that the guys are out of the business but yet they still remain number one. I don't believe they are doing anything special here.

Originally Posted by packerfan

Have you evaluated the on-page SEO of the sites?

Is the first site part of an authority site? I know this URL only has 100 words, but if it's part of a huge site, there may be a lot of link juice flowing internally.

Just food for thought...

[TBInternetMarketing]

It's pretty hard for us to give you an answer without knowing the keyword, or seeing a market samurai type screenshot of it from the SEO module. It could be though that this site has perfect on-page. Hard to say really.

[Mike Grant]

Either it's not competitive at all, they're super backlinked backlinks with authority, or he's using shift redirects.

[Stuart william]

Ranking is not only dependent only on backlink and content, their are so many other factors like onpage optimization, relevancy, social media interaction and many more.