MLHmptn - 6:18 am on Dec 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

If you look at pages ranking well in whatever niche you're in that don't appear like they should be where they are and you forget about the links (just ignore them and look at anything else you can think of), what other things do you see you think could cause the page to rank where it is? To me personally it looks like 'link value' can definitely be overridden by other factors, so I think it would be great to discuss what other factors people think could be in play if we 'throw out the links' to a page.

Conversions either through analytics and/or bounce rates (for websites not engaged in GA) and site traffic are what I am suspecting more and more.

Sadly I am noticing competitors that drive the price so low there is little to no profit potential are the ones making big gains in the SERPs with very little related back links. (I can only suspect the conversions are quite high because of the price shoppers).

Also noticed for quite some time local brands are dominating SERP's when they have very little to offer and ZERO keyword or synonym targeted backlinks. Walmart, Ace Hardware, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, you get the idea....