Ranked Pages vs. Ranked Sites

A single page may rank higher, but why?

[celgins]

I would never profess to being an SEO guru. Like many, I have read a lot and gathered notes from WW and I am still learning.

But for the life of me, I cannot understand why a 4-paragraph article always ranks higher (#2 on page 1 of SERPS in Google) than my website. The article is 1.5 years old, doesn't appear to have a pagerank, and harly any IBL's.

As far as I can see, the page/article continues to rank high because of one of the following:

1. Page age. It's been around for 1.5 years, but that's not a long time.

2. Keyword in URL. This may be the kicker, but I'm not sure. The page URL has the keyword in the name (ie. %20keyword.html)

3. Big time site. Though this page/article has no pagerank, its parent site is a HUGE, authoritative site.

4. All of the above.

Now, I'm not asking anyone to reveal their high-powered SEO secrets. I'm just looking for opinions or suggestions as to why this happens.

[adessa]

80% bigtime site
15% page age
05% keyword

[Quadrille]

99% big time site
01% page age (assuming unseen links, else 0%)
0% bar these.

[celgins]

I was actually hoping most of the weight wouldn't be leaning towards the big time site. One of the most popular sites on the web owns this page, but the page is probably one of its least seen.

Just a small article that absolutely will not move off of the front page.

Guess I just need to SEO until I get to the first page myself.