How Are These Guys Ranking So Well? I Don't Get It.

[seoskillet]

Hey Guys,

I am brand new here but have been doing SEO for about a year and a half. I am working on ranking a website in Google for the keyword "hairstyles" and when I check the top ten in the SERPs, I see a site called hair-factory.com ranked consistently in the top ten.

All of the other competitors have hundreds and some, thousands of backlinks but this one does not. If you do a backlink analysis in Yahoo, this site only has 20 backlinks. Also, take a look at the homepage and there is hardly any text on it. I have been watching them for a year or so and they're consistently in the top ten in Google. Their title tag is simply "hair-styles"

How are they accomplishing this? "hairstyles" is the most competitive term in the hair industry. I don't understand. Can someone please provide some insight?

[AussieWebmaster]

I see 454 links to the site and that it was registered in 2001... others on top of them have many more links but not the age

[seoskillet]

Ah I see... I actually did a backlink analysis on their "www" address. Most of their links are to their "non-www" address since they did not do the "non-www" to "www" 301 redirect.

In Yahoo's Site Explorer, it shows 205 links.

My question now, is: Can the age of the domain really have that big of an effect on the rankings in this case? I know the Search Engine Ranking factors on SEOMoz.org put the "Age of Site" up at the 4th most important ranking factor. BUT....the keyword "hairstyles" isn't even mentioned a single time on the homepage.

This just doesn't make much sense to me. Anymore insight?

[JohnW]

Age can be a really big factor. As to links - evaluate the total link picture and don't just count the number of links. And note that the backlinks for www and non-www can get consolidated in WMT without the www redirect.

And even after careful analysis sometimes a site will be performing well above what you would expect based on links, content etc., this can sometimes be the result of 301 redirects from other domains, which are very hard to discover.

[seoskillet]

I see. Thanks for the tip, but there is simply no real content on their homepage other than a copyright line. I checked the value of the links and they're mediocre. Nothing spectacular. Most of them are from low-quality sites.

I talked to a few other SEOs and they're having some trouble figuring it out too.

[AussieWebmaster]

lol... JOhn I was about to mention the other domain theory also

[jimbeetle]

BUT....the keyword "hairstyles" isn't even mentioned a single time on the homepage.
I checked the value of the links and they're mediocre. Nothing spectacular.
This is where you sometimes have to dig a little deeper, basically delve into a link's family tree.

Go back one generation. What text is being used in that external link? What is the title of the page the link is on? What is the age of that domain? Page? Link?

Go back one more generation. What link text is used in a link to the above page? What is the title of the page that that link is on? Etc.

Though you can't always answer all the questions you'll occasionally have an ah-ha moment that might explain some seemingly weird situations.