Site 3 days old ranking #1 for extremely competitive keyword

[plc90210]

I have a site ranking on the second page for a keyword whose first page is dominated by PR7 sites. So I was shocked to see today that a site that was just registered 3 days is ranking #1 for this keyword. It has 0 backlinks (obviously) so the only way it could be receiving any link juice is through 301 redirects. Is it possible to check a site for any 301 redirects that are pointing to it? Also, would be a good idea to buy expired domains and redirect them to your existing sites for the purpose of passing pagerank? (it's obviously working for the site ranking #1)...

[kellyman]

First thing i would do is make sure you are not signed into Google and seeing personalized searches

Clear your cache and look again,

[Sand]

Many of the popular backlink tools make it possible to look at 301s. None of them operate in realtime though, so it could take awhile before they have any data on a new site.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Expect a google rater to come visit sooner or later at which time they may very well bump you down due to being so new.

Congrats on getting everything else right! (enough to pass the algo part of Google's setup)

[ecmedia]

My wife is in the process of launching a new website and she got it online two days ago. She has been working on getting a page on Facebook and Pinterest but we have not even added a link from our current websites to it yet because it is not ready for launch yet (it only has one post saying essentially welcome). Guess what? While our established websites are struggling for traffic (with hundreds of links to thousands of pages), this one is on page 1, #5 for what we think is a very attractive word. Google is upside down, really!

[plc90210]

Guys, it isn't my site that is ranking #1, it is somebody else's site. Mine is ranking on the second page (as I said in the OP). And no, I am not signed into Google when viewing the search results.

"Many of the popular backlink tools make it possible to look at 301s."

Can you name a few?

[goodroi]

Expect a google rater to come visit sooner or later at which time they may very well bump you down due to being so new

Sgt_Kickaxe do you have research on that? I don't recall reading any Google documentation that Google instructs their human raters to penalize a site solely because it is new. My experience is that aging of a site and backlinks is usually handled with automated tool and not human reviewers.

[Sand]

Can you name a few?

Open Site Explorer is one. Select 'show only 301' and links from 'only external.'

AHrefs.com will show you redirecting domains as well, if you enter a domain, click the 'external' tab, and then click the 'redirect' tab. I would start here, since their data seems to be updated more regularly than OSE.

Majestic also shows you redirects, though I don't remember exactly the amount of data they give you (I no longer have a subscription so I can't check).

Also, just to add a little bit to the main topic at hand, the behavior you're seeing is pretty normal and I wouldn't expect it to last long. I put about 20 minutes of work into a one page EMD a few months back as a test, and after about a week, it shot up to the top 5 for its target keyword. It remained there for a few days, and then dropped to the depths. It has never returned, but was worth the effort it took.

[plc90210]

According to ahrefs, it doesn't have any redirects, it does have 8 backlinks though (all from the same domain and all are PR N/A so I don't think the links are the reason for its high ranking...)

[tedster]

all are PR N/A

That just means the PR has not been exported to the toolbar. Real PR most definitely exists (nad it's much more refined than a 0 - 10 score). Google uses real PR behind the scenes to help with ranking calculation, and it's updated continually.

[plc90210]

Ahrefs updated its data for the site and I found out why it's ranking so high - it has a 301 redirect from an aged, PR 7 domain. I guess the webmaster of the old site decided to move to a new domain.