How does a site get to no 3 in Google with no KW in their links?!!
-
Hello everyone, my first post - ahhh
I'm investigating a niche and there is a site that should have no right being there in my view.
It's no. 3 Google UK for 'company formation' with a small site with 65 weak links from only 7 domains and hosted in the US.
But more importantly, the Open Site Explorer says there is not 1 link with that term in its anchor text. This I find crazy and makes me suspicious.
But before I go back to my client saying "oh they must be black hat" I would like your expert views. I'm not sure whether to tut or congratulate them and for the first time I'm not sure what reasons to give for their amazing performance!
What's your views?
-
Yeah tried that, only 3 in Google and stopped my Magestic subscription.
I'll accept it for now and move on, but I haven't come across a white hat site that doesnt give some indication of why they rank so highly. This site goes against the grain with me in so many ways that it looks suspect.
The big issue is as 'the SEO expert' I have a question mark and the client will want to know why I dont know.
I'll just have to bump them down with my client's site wont I. Thanks for the reply.
Oh and nice G btw ;o)
-
Hi Stuart,
Even though OpenSiteExplorer has a decent index, it doesn't have all the data Google has. You might want to look into other sources like MajesticSEO, Google link: command or Yahoo Site Explorer Inlinks.
Recently, I was also looking at a competitor website and I was like "man, how can they rank for that query with such a low number of links and no good anchor text". I discovered that using the link: command on Google returned much more links than OSE.
Best regards,
Guillaume Voyer. -
Did anyone else have a thought on this or shall I give up on SEO and just invest in EMD's! (joke).
Although I appreciate one members view I would like another, as I persoanlly cant believe that they have the strength to be where they are just based on the domain.
-
Exact match domains are still very powerful in Google. Matt Cutts said the team was going to look at them in 2011, but that has not happened yet to my knowledge and even if they do, no guarantees of if or when they'll make an algorithm adjustment.
It is an exact match domain because the term "company formation" is in the URL, it's just the words are switched. But the phrase still appears in the URL and none of the other URLs are like that.
Right, they're only ranking because of their domain, at least in my opinion. Their DomainAuthority is very weak otherwise compared to the others.
-
Thanks for the response, I didnt say which domain but I dont consider www.theformationscompany.com/ to be exact match; it is they Im confused about.
As I understand EMD are not so powerful anymore in Google' s eyes, just that you get great backlink anchor text even with directory submissions.
Plus the main point is the strength of all the sites around them. I would Put them on page 4 at best!
-
I looked up the domain you're referring to.
The easy answer? They have an exact match domain. They have a somewhat okay title tag, and they do have backlinks.
Exact match domains are way overpowered and I think this is the case for this term!
It's not blackhat, just taking advantage of EMD's.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Interal linking
Re: I'm stuck by internal linking. What structure should a football website follow? Silo or Topic Cluster?
Competitive Research | | thanhdung0906
I need advice on my website. My website: https://tipbongda247.net/
I hope there are answers!
Thanks0 -
Tool for discovering outbound links?
I want to find a tool where I can put in a url: www.site.com and it will tell me all the people that site links to. If this is in the Moz tool set, then I apologize. I couldn't find it. I can only find tools that tell me who links to a site, but not the other way around. Thanks, Ruben
Competitive Research | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Why is this site at no.1?
In the last 2 months, a previously unranked/unheard of website jumped straight to no.1 position for a particular keyword when searched from USA and is even ranking over many other big brands or stronger DA/PA sites. I did notice some very strange JavaScript popup links that are heavily keyword linked from the first mention of the keyword on the page content. What are they trying to do here? Otherwise they don't seem to have much PA/DA or seo going on. Why are they doing so well?!
Competitive Research | | emerald0 -
Why is my competitor's site ranking #1?
I'm about to work for a local business website that offers cleaning services and products. The keyword they want the most is ruled by a very odd site; My client's competitor's site has been around for 7 years. (Less than the average of it's competitors. Less than my client's) Has 1 backlink. Lower PA MR MT & DA than any other in the SERP. It's a 1 page site made with Flash. They do not have FB or Twitter accounts. So I thought maybe they were ranking so well because of their traffic. But neither my client, me or my coworkers have ever heard of this company. And yet, they are ranking #1. And the only thing I notice that might have helped is that the title of their page is the exact keyword and nothing more. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | Eblan0 -
Small Link nalysis project - anyone
Hi, Not sure if someone can help me out. OSE only show the best mozrank data but i might have some links under that benchmark. Therefore anybody with a Majestic account that can filter new links from April 2012 to date. Payment not a problem. WMTools isnt showing data that i expected, so maybe its not there. Need a secondary opinion of the data from another source. Ive contacted some SEOmoz Recommended Companies...no response. Clearly have better things to do maybe.
Competitive Research | | xtopher660 -
How much keyword density for Google?
I have several pages on one site which have gone down during the past few months. They keyword density on those pages, which is not unnatural, pleased Google for many years. it still pleases Bing. But Google now seems very picky. Based upon your experience, what is the ideal % keyword density for 2 and 3 word phrases, and should they be left out of alt tags even when proper to put them there? While Google dominates, we do not wish to alienate BIng/Yahoo. It is a huge mystery, and experimentation with more non-keyword-related text has so far not born any fruit. Thank you, GH
Competitive Research | | gheh20130 -
Working through the slides on my first seo project, I'm trying to determine the most popular content on competition sites.
From the video, I understand I should be looking for unique opportunities. But is there a baseline for product qualification, ie., a min. PA,LRD, Inbound LInks, social shares, etc. I guess I'm asking what I should be looking for in the data provided on each competing site? What determines THE most popular and unique product?
Competitive Research | | AhmadS0 -
Best place to view referral traffic on a third party site?
What is the best site / tool to use to view referral traffic on a third party site?
Competitive Research | | nicole.healthline0