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Shoes of Prey Ranks Well With Hardly Any Keywords

by chris_87
17 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Website: Shoes of Prey
Title: Design Custom Made Shoes | Shoes Of Prey - Shoes of Prey
Meta description: Design your perfect shoes Using our 3D designer, you choose the shape, colour and height of your shoes We custom make them and ship worldwide within 4 weeks
Page Rank 5

Keywords: Custom Shoes, Design Custom Shoes
Density: "Design" 1.2% / "Custom" 0.00% (only appears in title/meta)
Total Words on Home Page: 250

The vast majority of anchor links pointing back to the site are simply the brand name of the site, shoes of prey. They are not using keyword rich anchors such as "design custom shoes", but it ranks very well for its target search terms in the SERPS.

The site seems so bare, yet it ranks so well. I like this approach Seeing how the site was helped designed by an ex-google employee its important to pay attention to its methods. But the content seems so bare, I definitely don't want to over optimize my site, but this seems almost on the opposite side of the extreme.
#keywords #prey #ranks #shoes
  • Profile picture of the author KingRoyal
    You never know if these guys have some serious PR sites pointing back to them though
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    • Profile picture of the author palms
      That site has 24,478 backlinks pointing at it, with 12,546+ of those containing the word "shoes."

      AHrefs reports 38,769 followed backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author chris_87
    Originally Posted by jacksarloks View Post

    Ye they have a ton of backlinks that's why they rank so high, and more importantly though a good percentage of them (75.4% according to tool I use) has the keyword Shoes of Prey in anchor text!
    Thanks for taking a look at the site. If 75% of the link anchor text reads "shoes of prey" how does that help them rank for "custom shoes" as a a search term? Shoes of prey is simply their brand name.

    Also what tool did you use to check the backlinks out of curiosity?
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by bluehabit View Post

      Thanks for taking a look at the site. If 75% of the link anchor text reads "shoes of prey" how does that help them rank for "custom shoes" as a a search term? Shoes of prey is simply their brand name.

      Also what tool did you use to check the backlinks out of curiosity?

      You must be getting personalized search results, I don't see the site ranked on the 1st SERPs for the keyword custom shoes.




      Screenshot while running Chrome Incognito.

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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by bluehabit View Post

      Thanks for taking a look at the site. If 75% of the link anchor text reads "shoes of prey" how does that help them rank for "custom shoes" as a a search term? Shoes of prey is simply their brand name.

      Also what tool did you use to check the backlinks out of curiosity?
      It's kind of dumb to make assumptions on their anchor text percentage based on backlink tools.

      You got 75%

      Ahrefs... 43%
      OSE.... 50%
      Majestic... 46%

      Doesn't really matter though because all of these tools only find a fraction of the all the backlinks that are actually out there. The real percentage might be 20% or 90%. Really impossible to know without having access to their site in Webmaster Tools.

      Bottom line, the site has a lot of links, some of which are pretty good ones. That is why it ranks.

      And to be honest, there really is not anything wrong with the content either. People saying you have to mention every keyword you want to rank for, use a certain keyword density, and/or have XXX number of words on a page have no clue what they are doing.

      People should research LSI a little more.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Why wouldn't shoesofprey.con rank
        for * gasp * shoes of prey?

        I'm sure ebay.com ranks #1 for ebay...

        Shoesofprey is an authority site, BIG authority site.

        Just because most have never heard of it...

        But that site is hugely popular.

        Now you know the rest of the story. They probably would not rank
        for just shoes, nobody searches for just that. But custom made shoes, yeah.

        Paul
        Signature

        If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I still don't see them ranking for the keyword custom shoes. Maybe on some other data center, but not where I'm at (east coast/US).
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  • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
    Originally Posted by bluehabit View Post


    The vast majority of anchor links pointing back to the site are simply the brand name of the site, shoes of prey. They are not using keyword rich anchors such as "design custom shoes", but it ranks very well for its target search terms in the SERPS.
    That's called a natural link profile. Keyword text is dead.
    Prediction: Anchor Text is Weakening...And May Be Replaced by Co-Occurrence- Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

    Inb4 "SEOmoz said it so it must be true...lol".

    I have mixed feeling about them but they're spot on with this one.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Backlinko View Post

      That's called a natural link profile. Keyword text is dead.
      Prediction: Anchor Text is Weakening...And May Be Replaced by Co-Occurrence- Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz

      Inb4 "SEOmoz said it so it must be true...lol".

      I have mixed feeling about them but they're spot on with this one.
      (Not directed at you, Backlinko)




      Lol @ Moz

      Ok, lets do this.

      Moz had an example that I'm familiar with (niche). Here's a quote from the Moz link above:

      Number two, "manufacturing directory." Again, another very competitive phrase, and ThomasNet is ranking number three without mentioning any of these terms, without seeming to try and target that phrase at all.
      Anyone that has a manufacturing business knows that Thomasnet is a business directory, it's common knowledge in the niche.

      Moz claims Thomasnet is mysteriously ranking for the keyword manufacturing directory, what Moz doesn't understand is the power of authority & the power of internal/external page relevancy.

      Thomasnet has 2,400+ internal supporting pages targeting the keyword manufacturing.

      Thomasnet has 600+ internal supporting pages targeting the keyword directory.


      This is what I love about most SEOs, they have external link tunnel vision, they don't look at the big picture, they only focus on what the external links, or the single internal page is doing.

      The exact same happens for external web pages/links, I've tried to tell people that overall relevancy is important on external backlinks but they usually chime in well, would you turn down a PR7 on an irrelevant page? :rolleyes:

      I don't have to look at a single external backlink for Thomasnet to know that Thomasnet has thousands of external links from relevant business sites.

      Thomasnet has been in existence since Orville & Wilbur Wright were still alive, this isn't just some internet startup, it's 100 plus years of relevancy & authority offline & online. When Thomasnet started up, they had thousands of sites/business at their disposal for link sources. Thomasnet is just about equivalent to BBB for a single niche (manufacturing).


      Same thing happening here. Directory of Manufacturers from ThomasNet, it's not even linking to the manufacturing directory page. It's linking just to the home page of the website. But it's mentioning ThomasNet, and it says, "Directory of Manufacturers." So the words are in there, and Google is kind of going, "Oh, yeah, I see this association happening a lot. It's not directly in the anchor text, but you know what? I'm getting smarter."
      That blog post was on November 16th, 2012 & I still don't think they're seeing the BIG PICTURE considering they don't mention the hundreds/thousands of relevant internal supporting pages pointing links back to the original ranked page/URL.

      Welcome to the future, lol.
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      • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
        intitle:"manufacturing" site:www.thomasnet.com

        Good stuff Yukon, but can you get slapped with a penalty for over use of targeted keywords within your own internal pages the same way you might if you don't mix up the anchor text from external links?


        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        (Not directed at you, Backlinko)

        Lol @ Moz

        Ok, lets do this.

        Moz had an example that I'm familiar with (niche). Here's a quote from the Moz link above:

        Anyone that has a manufacturing business knows that Thomasnet is a business directory, it's common knowledge in the niche.

        Moz claims Thomasnet is mysteriously ranking for the keyword manufacturing directory, what Moz doesn't understand is the power of authority & the power of internal/external page relevancy.

        Thomasnet has 2,400+ internal pages targeting the keyword manufacturing.

        Thomasnet has 600+ internal pages targeting the keyword directory.

        This is what I love about most SEOs, they have external link tunnel vision, they don't look at the big picture, they only focus on what the external links, or the single internal page is doing.

        The exact same happens for external web pages/links, I've tried to tell people that overall relevancy is important on external backlinks but they usually chime in well, would you turn down a PR7 on an irrelevant page? :rolleyes:

        I don't have to look at a single external backlink for Thomasnet to know that Thomasnet has thousands of external links from relevant business sites.

        Thomasnet has been in existence since Orville & Wilbur Wright were still alive, this isn't just some internet startup, it's 100 plus years of relevancy & authority offline & online. When Thomasnet started up, they had thousands of sites/business at their disposal for link sources. Thomasnet is just about equivalent to BBB for a single niche (manufacturing).

        That blog post was on November 16th, 2012 & I still don't think they're seeing the BIG PICTURE considering they don't mention the hundreds/thousands of relevant internal pages pointing links back to the original ranked page/URL.

        Welcome to the future, lol.
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        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Carl Brown View Post

          intitle:"manufacturing" site:www.thomasnet.com

          Good stuff Yukon, but can you get slapped with a penalty for over use of targeted keywords within your own internal pages the same way you might if you don't mix up the anchor text from external links?
          You could probably have a lot of similar internal pages end up in Supplemental SERPs If they're very similar text on all the pages, but I wouldn't call that a penalty since it can be corrected anytime the webmaster wants.

          Google also doesn't like very similar page titles, but I've noticed that changing the keywords around can make a difference in the SERPs when trying to rank multiple pages for the same keyword. You don't necessarily have to have the keyword in the page title but IMO it helps with traffic CTR in the SERPs. Example, If I'm searching for a keyword phrase that includes car, I would rather see the word car in the page title (SERP title) than something like vehicle, where vehicle is a generic word (could be a motorcycle, tractor, etc...).

          Really all you have to do on supporting pages is briefly mention the target keyword/s & keep the page relevant to the niche, it could be a single sentence, image text caption, <hx> tag, etc... My favorite site on the net is Wikipedia, they have the whole relevancy thing nailed & that's the reason a lot of times you'll see double SERP listings for Wikipedia pages.

          Take this wikipedia page as an example, the main keyword for that page is automobile. Look below each of the <h2> tags (sub-titles) on that page. Each <h2> (sub-title) link is building a foundation for the next relevant page. It's not just a single Wikipedia page targeting the keyword automobile, it's a chain of pages setting each other up as a supporting page for a single sub-niche.




          Wikipedia does take it a step further & mentions anything & everything under the sun about the entire niche, in this example that would be anything that involves transportation. Still, Wikipedia has a good setup in how they pass the relevancy to multiple internal pages. Really, If you look at a bunch of Wikipedia pages & break those pages down, all they're doing is creating long pages of text out of short summaries.

          I'm going to cheat & use something I've already posted but it fits here.

          If you look at that image below you might say that's a screw/bolt, but If you break that image down, there's a lot more than just a screw/bolt.


          The details:
          • Set screw
          • Allen
          • Steel
          • Black finish
          • Right hand threads
          • Coarse threads
          • 1/4" diameter
          • 20 thread count
          • 1/4" length
          • 1/8" drive size

          The same goes for ranking web pages as the screw/bolt example, each one of those details could be it's own web page, that briefly mentions the page your trying to rank, & links back to that target page with internal links.
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      • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
        Originally Posted by yukon View Post

        (Not directed at you, Backlinko)

        Lol @ Moz

        Ok, lets do this.
        I hear you.

        But I actually think that -- although they may be missing the big picture -- they're definitely onto something with co-occurences.

        And based on what you posted here, you're thinking is along the same lines.

        When in doubt, I try to think like a search engine. And it looks like you do the same thing.

        If I was Google and wanted to know what a page was about, I'd look beyond the content of the page (like you said).

        And I'd use other signals, like:

        • Text around inbound links
        • Text around social signal links
        • Co-occurences (both links and plain text)
        • The theme of the site based on OTHER content on the site (part of what Moz missed)
        That's why I don't get why people here on WF still say things like "Google ranks PAGES, not sites". There's no doubt that Google has moved BIG TIME towards things like domain authority, branding for ranking.


        And based on what you said here, they're using "site wide relevancy" as a relevancy signal.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    It's funny that Thomasnet was mentioned as an example. I know a little bit about the inner workings of their business from one of their employees. Their directory is fantastic, but trust me, anything they are doing right on the SEO front is purely by accident.
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    • Profile picture of the author Backlinko
      Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

      Their directory is fantastic, but trust me, anything they are doing right on the SEO front is purely by accident.
      Sometimes the best SEO is by accident.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

    It's funny that Thomasnet was mentioned as an example. I know a little bit about the inner workings of their business from one of their employees. Their directory is fantastic, but trust me, anything they are doing right on the SEO front is purely by accident.
    Some of the things they do might be an accident but the sole purpose of Thomasnets existence on the internet is to be a directory, that's their goal. They do target the keywords that Moz mentioned, so it's not as mysterious as Moz would lead people to believe. There's plenty of internal pages targeting the keywords [manufacturing] + [directory] that have links pointing back to the ranked page (Index page) that Moz pointed out.

    They're also link sculpting like crazy, this one page (URL below) has 137 nofollow tags (lol).
    • hxxp://www.thomasnet.com/products/engineering-services-26122002-1.html
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