How do small sites suddenly gain high ranks

[MustardDan]

Hi everyone, I just want to share a finding and perhaps ask if anyone has noticed the same and found any reasons behind it.

We have held position 1 on Google UK for a certain keyword for a good year or so, we have over the past couple of days dropped to P2. Thats not a huge issue but we have been replaced at the top by a site that is keyword stuffed, only has 7 backlinks to their entire domain from 2 other linking domains....A very low quality site indeed. The site in question has never been on the radar before and it has suddenly appeared from nowhere.

Also, on another site I work with, we generally hold top 5 in Google for out main keyword, 2 weeks ago, a domain less than 2 months old, suddenly appeared straight at position 3. Again their site is keyword stuffed and all there inbound links are footer links that seem to be from a link network.

Isn't this the sort of stuff Google is meant to be preventing? It seems the extreme low quality is starting to get back up there.

Any thoughts?

[aristotle]

Well if they have valuable relevant information then they might deserve a high ranking regardless of whether they have many backlinks or some keyword stuffing. Their usefulness to visitors should be the main factor, not backlinks.

[MustardDan]

They are poorly designed affilaite sites with little unique content. Very low quality.

[Martin Ice Web]

Well if they have valuable relevant information then they might deserve a high ranking regardless of whether they have many backlinks or some keyword stuffing. Their usefulness to visitors should be the main factor, not backlinks.

You are kidding?

[JesterMagic]

In my niche I have seen a number of small sites like this. Their information is old (like 2009 old), very low number of back links yet they occupy one of the top 5 spots. This isn't just for one page most of the pages on the site ranks high.

[backdraft7]

It's called "fresh meat" and Google eats it up initially, sometimes...and it might last a day or two, or up to a week or two if lucky. It's a flaw in the algo as far as I'm concerned, but it's their playground.
Blackhatter's are currently having great success and fun with this "Achilles Heal" of G.

[Kelowna]

The short answer is that Google loves spam.

Simply buy a throw away domain, $10
buy 100,000 to 500,000 links from a mass marketer, $150
hire a freelance designer to build the site $150

When the new domain ranks, takes about 4 days, just 301 to what ever you like.

Rank and Bank, Churn and Burn, call it what you like, many in the tough niches are doing it because it works. Don't believe me? Go check out what the payday loans serps look like.

If a $500 investment brings in $1,000 or more a week, and stays there for even just 3 or 4 weeks, you make a great ROI.

Now rinse and repeat, build 10 throw away domains...

The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.

I don't wear a hat, I make money online, as the rules change so must you... or put on a white hat and get an outside job like many other failed webmasters are doing. More worried about the color of some fictitious hat, rather than making money to support their family. I am not evil, I do not wear a hat of any color, I just do what lots of testing has shown me works. I do not call it spam if someone searches for payday loans and see's my site, clicks to get their payday loan and moves on. That is a good user experience and despite what you read here, Google Loves Spam.

Sorry I have been reading these boards for years, so much BS, sometimes I need to rant a bit as so many just dont get it. Throw away the F***ing hat and make some money, once you have money, make whatever color hat site you want. But make money first by following the lead of people who are doing it now.

1- Learn how to build cheap sites that are good for the user, sell what you say you are selling.

2- Learn where to get mass links that work for cheap.

3- Now this one was the hardest for me to learn. Never, Ever, EVER fall in love with your site, just rank and bank, churn and burn, rince and repeat.

...end of rant ... enough reading, back to work everyone.

[netmeg]

Well that's one way. And probably the only way for that particular niche.

[Kelowna]

Well that's one way. And probably the only way for that particular niche.

If it works in the tough niche, then it is even easier and cheaper to do in YOUR niche... think about it

[netmeg]

Heh. Don't need to.

[Noman_Ali]

Well, Thats true some sites still rank with keyword stuffing I also faced this problem last month but now that site going downward and my site getting rank well and normal to the top of SERPs. So wait and watch this site will go backward soon mate.

[gyppo]

Sad thing is that most of the older established sites are so riddled with penalties & other negative ranking factors that it's relatively easy to launch a new site, pepper it with links, enjoy some candy then crash & burn.

Then just 301 the links to a new site. Rinse repeat.

Unfortunately most of us are attached to our brand names.

[ethought]

Search on Google for "honeymoon period seo" you will see a lot of discussion about this phenomenon.

[fathom]

only has 7 backlinks to their entire domain

Just because you only see 7 backlinks doesn't mean those are the only backlinks the domain has.

Much like Google prevents you from seeing queries typed in by those logged into their Google Account... all domain owners can prevent you from scanning the backlinks they provide.

If you disallow a link checker from crawling... guess what?

[backdraft7]

honeymoon period seo

appropriate name, love 'em & leave 'em

[moTi]

ok, ranting time. i'll play the devil's advocate. eat this:

i can't remember that i've ever read a WebmasterWorld member stating that the fresh website who dares to rank above him is a good website with quality content and deserved the rise to the top. strangely, every time that happens, the content of the new contestants is disqualified as utter rubbish.

sadly, WebmasterWorld nowadays seems to be a pool of grayed established publishers with mostly decades-old content who most of the time do nothing else than complain about the newcomers instead of getting their act together and step up to a new level in order to face the competition. how dare others come up with fresh ideas in order to disrupt the set structures.

ranking a quality new website nowadays is so much harder than ten or five years ago. my website is top-notch in its area, it absolutely deserves to overtake the old stuff in the serps in next to no time. instead, it's a wearing and depressingly tedious fight for months and months with various setbacks for whatever reasons google decides.

i'm sick of the whining. it's pure preservation of the status quo with the established webmasters enviously only wanting to preserve their dated, meanwhile often completely useless stuff in the serps. i'd wholeheartedly welcome any step google and its algorithms take to understand the quality of new websites more rapidly.

[pontifex]

Whenever these discussions come up: the factor time barely gets enough attention in the discussions. I have seen poor domains outranking the good ones, but never for longer than 6 weeks. At least not at serious terms with more than 5k search volume per month.

Google is pretty harsh, just not pretty fast - IMHO. It can happen to see crap for 6 weeks, but it will vanish or be replaced by new crap. In the past 11 years I have been playing that game, Google always repaired the glitches to the necessary levels to stay on top of their financial wealth. That this is NOT our wealth - well...

[dvduval]

Yea, there is a pretty funny one in our niche. They are trying to rank for a PHP script and doing very well! A couple of sites tried their script and then removed it. Google must still be counting the removed backlinks. Meanwhile there are no backlinks pointing at it according to Majestic (except internals).

[robdwoods]

I have actually seen this in a SERP recently for a "lead gen" type of term. When doing a competitive analysis I could find no clear reason a new, thin site with few obvious links was ranking in the top 4 for a highly competitive term. I assumed it was an abberation or heavy link buying that the link research tools haven't caught up to yet and which Google hasn't caught up to and burned.

Churn and burn still works, just not for as long on a given domain as it used to.

[JesterMagic]

I have about 4 competitor sites which I just looked at that have been in the serps for a few months now and are slowly taking over different keywords. They are EMD domains which is not necessarily a bad thing but after looking more closely at them they are all pretty much the same. Same Wordpress type site and theme with just the graphics and content different. You can tell the same person wrote it but just changed things enough. Looking further into the backlinks from Alexa I see these sites have about 70 or so different backlinks.

I checked out over 10 of the backlinks and I see they are blogs with each about 6 articles with keyword loaded entries. They link to about 6 different sites in each article. 2 sites are usually theirs and the other 4 are genuine sites like Wikipedia, Techcrunch, etc. Some of the sites do share ips.

Basically someone created these sites which look okay at first glance and almost all of the backlinks these sites have. I am not sure how an algorithm could spot this but it just shows you the lengths people go to rank their sites.

[HuskyPup]

I am not sure how an algorithm could spot this but it just shows you the lengths people go to rank their sites.

Are the sites relevant and have any quality? If so would your question better be:

but it just shows you the lengths people HAVE TO go to rank their sites.

G's brought all this crap on themselves, they started it and now they're having to live with it and try and sort it out and the more they try the bigger mess they're getting into.

[JesterMagic]

Are the sites relevant and have any quality?

They are about the topic but the post are just spun different ways talking about how good the product is. I would put the quality just above a scraper site. The posts are just there to sell the product.

The backlink sites are just filled with posts on different topics spun so they could include their sites using different keywords for the link.

[fathom]

ok, ranting time. i'll play the devil's advocate. eat this:

Candidly, I agree. Maybe the problem with ranking lower is 'ones content does not deserve being higher'... it's all FREE, the results that is... how can anyone complain about something they got for free.

One thing you'll never hear is Wikipedia complaining about lower ranks... they simply expand their content diversity & content appeal.

[Naj0rt]

The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.

I don't think there's more accurate words to describe how I'm feeling right now.

Sad thing is that most of the older established sites are so riddled with penalties

I've said it before and but I'll say it again, google should stop punishing spammers and instead concentrate on rewarding sites that have an established record of doing the right thing. If you've never keyword stuffed or bought links you deserve ranking, and a medal. I want my medal.

[robdwoods]

If you've never keyword stuffed or bought links you deserve ranking, and a medal.

While I understand your sentiment and I know your comment was probably tongue-in-cheek, let's remember that it's not if you are a "white-hat" that determines whether you deserve to rank, it's whether you have done everything possible to actually deserve to rank. If you want to rank #1 and you can't objectively say you are the unquestioned best result for a query, then you don't "deserve" to rank #1 no matter what tactics you use.

[netmeg]

It's not enough to just follow the rules.

[internetheaven]

Google loves spam in the organic results. It boosts their bottom line.

My hat has been getting dirtier and dirtier for a couple of years now. If you do everything white-hat and Google still bans you, accusing you of being black-hat over and over for every site you build ... guess what happens?

[fathom]

The only ones that are hurting right now are those so called white hats trying to do what Google says.

I don't think there's more accurate words to describe how I'm feeling right now.

Ya know how ridiculous that sounds!

You're just trying to... "just make a great website?"

Once upon a time Google thought... "a video sharing archive that's what we need!" They invested in video.google.com and it was a dud.

They could have tried again and created video2.google.com and if that turned out to be another dud made video3.google.com but instead they had money so they bought youtube.com

Moral...if you suck at making things great... hire the people that do that and you won't need to worry about webspam.

[seoskunk]

Moral...if you suck at making things great... hire the people that do that and you won't need to worry about webspam.

They had a lott of money fathom so buying youtube.com was an option.

Youtube was an incredible site, and has improved under Google. But you have to have very deep pockets to fund it. Not everyone has that kind of money. So we have a go ourselves. Try and follow the rules because there seems little other direction.

[fathom]

They had a lott of money fathom so buying youtube.com was an option.

Yes that is true. But the creators of Youtube didn't have alot of money to create Youtube, which is the point of "just making a great website".