Websites ranking without external links

[member22]

I see some websites ranking ( not 1 st ) but in the TOP 5 of google for 3 word keywords without having a SINGLE external links. How is it possible ?

Do they have a method to give power to their internal from the homepage or another page ?

I just don't understand how they manage to do that ?

Could someone explain ?

[goodroi]

It is unusual but not unheard of to have a url rank without external backlinks.

Here are just some of the scenarios it can happen:

1) 301 redirect old page into new page. New page starts ranking based on the link juice from the inbound 301 redirect.

2) Internal page is linked to from homepage or other powerful page(s). Do a search for "terms of service" and you will probably see some TOS pages ranking that no external site is linking to.

3) Google's ranking algo is not solely based on backlinks. Google sometimes gives a ranking boost to news stories if there is a fast breaking new story. Remember that there are many other factors that can cause Google to rank a page.

4) Have very low competition for a keyword phrase. For example "widget charity toy collection" returns over 79 million results but I doubt there is anyone trying to for rank for that term. Simply by having an exact keyword match you probably could rank for it.

[dududoseo]

I saw something similar once. But in this case, the site was an exact domain that was 7 years old.
No 301, no internal pages, not social. Only one page in an exact domain, ranking 2nd for a very competitive keyword.

[goodroi]

Less than 24 hours later with no external pages linking here and we are ranking #1 for "widget charity toy collection". Happy Holidays!

[UK_Web_Guy]

"Do they have a method to give power to their internal from the homepage or another page ? "

I think this does happen, whether it's deliberate on the site owners part I don't think so..

I think Google tries to give the user the most relevant page, so link juice can be of benefit to pages that don't have the direct external link.

I think a combination of internal links and content is what can trigger this.

I'm actually looking to do this at the moment.

My homepage is ranking for phrases that i now want an inner page to rank for, as the product range of the site has grown, i no longer want the homepage to rank, but there are lots of old links to the homepage that i won't be able to easily get changed to the inner page - so I've been doing a lot of research into the internal passing of link power/anchor text -

Any experts out there with an opinion?

[agent_x]

I have two sites like this, one a couple of years old that has never had any backlinks, but gets a steady 70 - 80 hits a day from G, and another that was a dropped domain that I picked up earlier this year, but still has no backlinks according to Majestic, and is getting a steadily increasing amount of traffic from G. Neither have any topical content or anything like that.