7 replies to this topic

[santa]

Ive been looking at a few websites (eCommerce) today that rank in position 2 & 3 on Google but only have a few hundred back links. How is this possible? i looked they're back links via Yahoo site explorer and was pretty shocked to see they didnt have a lot and the links seemed just to be web directories and low end blogs.

How do they do this or am i missing something?

[Catz]

Could it be...site content?

The way their web sites are set up is user and in turn more search engine friendly?

They have been around a while and/or are considered authority sites?

There could be all kinds of reasons they have a good online presence.

Could it be they focus on things besides back links? (Obviously)

Maybe they actually optimize the website itself, refining their copy and offering what visitors are seeking?

Are they doing well for multiple relevant search phrases or just one particular term you are researching into?

Perhaps they spend their time improving upon their own websites rather than focusing in on what other sites are doing?

These are all questions you can ask yourself. If you are wondering what they are doing to achieve that ranking, take a look at their websites rather than their back links and perhaps you will discover something.

You don't have to have hundreds upon hundreds of back links to do well in Google. Links into the site are just one of many factors that can make a difference.

[SEOBestTips]

1. Content
2. Domain age (big factor with trust/authority from Google)
3. High quality links (probably supported with many 2nd and 3rd tier link wheels)

Any of the above will probably cover what you are seeing in the SERPs. Usually if a webpage has been online, with no malicious activity and a lot of successful relationships with search visitors, Google will give them a lot of trust and authority for their keywords. This is something that develops as your site ages beyond 1-3 years and has constant updates of content.

[Michael Martinez]

SEO is not all about links. There are plenty of other factors that may influence the search results you see in ecommerce queries, some of which may include:

• Relevance of locality to the query
• Competitors investing too much effort in links
• Substantial on-page emphasis
• Being logged in to Google (with search history active)
• Competitors could have been downgraded by Panda
• Competitors could be emphasizing other products
• Competitors could be targeting other queries/keywords
• You're looking at rankings at the wrong time of the week/day (many queries' results fluctuate throughout the week)
• You're looking at one specific data center (most likely one that is not active)
• The competitors are basing their optimization on one specific data center (most likely one that is not active)
• Competitors could have incurred penalties

[nuttakorn]

Perhaps that site also redirect site and also get some redirect links as well. You should check this with OSE.

[chrishirst]

2. Domain age (big factor with trust/authority from Google)

Nope NOT Domain "age", what has been done while getting "old"

[MollyHunter]

I think the key thing with that video is whilst he goes about the houses to say don't worry about it, he doesn't say "No, domain age isn't a ranking factor". The video seem's far more centered around people not registering their domain for 5 years because they think their going to get an SEO bonus.

With the initial question, remember it is quality of links and not quantity of links that count too. Links from well established sites, with high pagerank (if we care about that anymore), lots of indexed pages and a good site age are wortyh a lot more than links from low quality sites.

Whilst I agree that there are a lot of ranking factors taken into account it can often get to the stage where the person with the best links wins, quality, not quantity.

Edited by MollyHunter, 03 August 2011 - 11:26 AM.

[Hichem]

same question asked in here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=STpCM-3K3KY

you're welcome.