(Advanced) understanding how we rank

[Wealthyclark]

Does anyone know what strategy site's use to rank their pages high when the actual page that shows in the serps have no content(only links and forms). I mean, am I missing a key-point here.

Allow me to give an example:

I decided to give the travel niche a try, while doing my research (just trying to figure things out) I found the key-pharse "cheap one way flights to Australia"

OK, it doesn't get many searches but the page that ranks #1 in google for it has no content (just forms and links). bestflights.com.au/

I also did some anchor text research on the site to see what sites are linking to the page and with what anchor text and none of the sites linking to the page was using that particular text for the link or any type of variations of it.

I want to understand how a site in this potions with no content ranks. All I ever here is write good content, content is king and keep it fresh. Most sites such as the one talked about here are the same way, no content (just links and forms). Is there an alternate route.

the site is bestflights.com.au/

and how did they register such an extension

[Amitywill]

Probably because it's got over 10,311 links to that page alone.

Getting a good ranking in Google is I'd say 90% all about back links and off
page SEO.

The truth is on page SEO and the content is not a huge factor for getting
a good ranking. Yes it's great to have good content to show your visitors
but in terms of ranking well in Google on page SEO and content only plays
a small part.

Also that site may not have many back links pointing to it with that keyword
as anchor text but it's still got the authority because of the 10,311 other back
links pointing to it so it ranks for all sorts of keywords in that niche. Over 50%
of searches on Google are unique and some site has to show up for them.

Will

[Wealthyclark]

Originally Posted by Amitywill

Probably because it's got over 10,311 links to that page alone.

Getting a good ranking in Google is I'd say 90% all about back links and off
page SEO.

The truth is on page SEO and the content is not a huge factor for getting
a good ranking. Yes it's great to have good content to show your visitors
but in terms of ranking well in Google on page SEO and content only plays
a small part.

Also that site may not have many back links pointing to it with that keyword
as anchor text but it's still got the authority because of the 10,311 other back
links pointing to it so it ranks for all sorts of keywords in that niche. Over 50%
of searches on Google are unique and some site has to show up for them.

Will

I understand the fact that back-links are more important than just about anything but most of the back-links to this site are from the same couple of places over and over again. Does it not matter if most of your back-links come from the same place?

[Preciseim]

Originally Posted by Wealthyclark

I understand that fact that back-links are the more important than just about anything but all most of the back-links to this site are from the same couple of places over and over again. Does it not matter if most of your back-links come from the same place?

Well there is a lot of data to support the theory that ip diversity is key when is comes to value of backlinks. So really you need to get backlinks from as many different sources as possible (preferably high quality as well)

[Wealthyclark]

Originally Posted by Preciseim

Well there is a lot of data to support the theory that ip diversity is key when is comes to value of backlinks. So really you need to get backlinks from as many different sources as possible (preferably high quality as well)

Did you even read the original post?

[Preciseim]

Originally Posted by Wealthyclark

Did you even read the original post?

Yes I read the post fine and as I said if you want a site to rank well you need links from a lot of different sources.

However you are wondering how a page can rank well with little content. It's all about authority. Once a site reaches the tipping point, every time it puts up a new page, as long at it has got a bit of on page optimisation it will rank well.

This is why wikipedia dominates so many of the serps. It has reached the tipping point of authority.

[DogScout]

Read the source code and you'll see why it ranks for "cheap one way flights to Australia". It uses that repeatedly as the anchor of internal links.

[Frank Donovan]

Originally Posted by Wealthyclark

I mean, am I missing a key-point here.

Before this thread gets moved to its rightful position in the SEO forum, I'd just suggest that, IMO, your OP does miss a key point.

We can all get caught up in the mechanics of SEO and analyse the number of authority backlinks, keywords in content etc and neglect to focus on the actual user experience.

If I were to type in the query "cheap one-way flights to Australia", that site you referenced is pretty much exactly what I'd want to see - there's a form right on the front page to allow me to find the info straight away. Why would I want to wade through a bunch of articles about travel?

There's content and there's relevant content.


Frank

[Wealthyclark]

Originally Posted by Preciseim

Yes I read the post fine and as I said if you want a site to rank well you need links from a lot of different sources.

However you are wondering how a page can rank well with little content. It's all about authority. Once a site reaches the tipping point, every time it puts up a new page, as long at it has got a bit of on page optimisation it will rank well.

This is why wikipedia dominates so many of the serps. It has reached the tipping point of authority.

I understand everything your saying, but as far as I can see the site I'm referring to has very little content at all (links and forms on all their pages), so how did they reach this tipping point that you refer to?

Wikipedia is based on nothing more than content, so would you agree that your comparison is fairly poor?