High ranking for bad website...

[phntsm]

Hi everyone. I was trying to analyze a website that ranks high on google. It appears that their file name, description, and title emphasizes the keyword, but nothing else shows that it should rank so high. There is no text content, just tables and specs. They are not linked from other high page ranking sites. Can someone tell me why they are ranking so high for not having an optimized site? Thanks.

[Marcia]

Welcome to the board, phntsm.

There are over 100 variables that in various combinations can account for why a site ranks high. Here's a lengthy, detailed discussion that should help, outlining the factors for determining scoring:

The 100 for Google Rankings [webmasterworld.com].

Hope that helps.

[charpress]

A keyword phrase that I would very much like to score #1 on always goes to a ridiculous, off-topic, site.

The site starts off with 5 pictures of women in different hats and is titled "The different hats of xxxx". That is all there is on the home page. Each picture is a link to another page where you are told all about the wonderful things this person has done while wearing that hat (as a mother, as a good-deed-doer, as a lawyer, etc., ad nauseum).

The particular key word is buried as an incidental comment in one of these self-congratulating "hat" pages.

There is no worthwile content anywhere on this site. My conclusion is that in some cases there is no objective way of figuring out how on earth Google ranks a particular site.

[Harley_m]

that meaty website i have seen before, and wondered why on earth it beats the sites below it, but on a discussion regarding link popularity and quality i read, they use "hats" as the keyword. the number one and two spot for the keyword "hats" has 950odd incoming links, and so even without a good keyword relevency, they have brute forced their way to number one through shear numbers of links...

have you read this article...?

[tedster]

But if it's truly off-topic for some other organizations prospects, then it doesn't really matter. The visitors will back-button out of there and keep on looking down the list, right?

[phntsm]

I guess what we're trying to figure out is if there are some special techniques we aren't seeing. Besides, Google doesn't want that kind of site resulting in the top position. If it is by mere pagerank and so forth, then I would assume it is a big part of Google's algo.

[charpress]

What really makes it hard to understand is that the hat person did nothing in the way of strategy to get into #1. We have conversed by email a couple of times and she has no clue.

Also, "hat" is not part of the key phrase. The phrase appears deep down where she refers to a book title that has the key phrase in it. I guess this is what is called serendipity ranking (hey, did I just coin a phrase?).