need some good SEO input on this one

very interesting result i found

[lisa2005]

Hi you yahoo seo masters, help me out on this one.

If you do a yahoo search for keyword [blue widgets] item #8 has only 20 some backlinks, it has no mention of the word "blue widgets" anywhere on its website. but it is on first page of yahoo. i thought yahoo is all about content. i am dumbfounded.

any insights?

[edited by: martinibuster at 3:40 am (utc) on April 13, 2006]
[edit reason] Widgetized post. Please let's not discuss specific websites, thanks. ;) [/edit]

[treeline]

Go take a look at those backlinks. Likely the links, or the pages they're on, answer your question.

Yahoo is not just about onpage factors, everyone chases Google now.

[lisa2005]

beside 3 yahoo directory backlinks, rest of them are all pretty much junk. do yahoo put that much points for being in the yahoo directory?

[treeline]

Yes, but does the link text say "blue widgets" on any of the sites, junk or not? If the phrase isn't real competitive it doesn't always take much. And 3 directory links from Yahoo could be quite valuable, especially to Yahoo. If they're on a Blue Widgets page, there's bonus points for being on theme.

[SincerelySandy]

Most likely you will find that one of the sites that links to that site is using the phrase "blue widgets" in the link. Sometimes a page can have good positions for keywords that are not even on the page, so long as there is a link pointing to that page using the keywords. Such as the classic "miserable failure" search.