How does it happen?

[beasscr]

How do sites that seem not to have much if any optimization on there pages get high rankings?

Here I am busting my butt trying to give the search engines what they want and in some cases I don't come up with high rankings.

How is this possible?

[agerhart]

Could be any # of things....do you have an example?

I know what you mean though....it can be frustrating some times.

[drbill]

Sure there is no cloaking involved?

[IanTurner]

How long have you been working on the site?

[beasscr]

I have not personally worked on anything that is able to rise in rankings w/o any optimization (wish I was that lucky) but for example, here's some in what I mean:
<URL snipped>#2 in Google and has no meta tags at all. The site is also well... egh. There is soem text but not a whole lot.

2.http://www.fl-seafood.com/Seafood_Basics/frmain.htm
#2 on Looksmart. I just don't know how they have done it.

I have seen many when not "looking" for them, but now it seems that when I need to find examples I cant! Go figure!!

How can you tell if a page has been cloaked anyway?

<Note: no specific URLs, please ~ Marcia>

(edited by: Marcia at 9:33 pm (gmt) on Sep. 20, 2001

[Liane]

For the longest time I was competing against one of my own sites and I couldn't figure out why. The site was old ... outdated even and not that terrific to begin with, yet it was always in the top 3 or 5 for all major keywords.

I have come to realize that because of the links it has gathered over the years (without any effort from me) and its long standing on all of the SE's it has become what someone else decscribed in one of the forums as *bulletproof*.

Its frustrating indeed, but if you actively search out good quality links and keep adding to your content, you should see some results. Its a long, agonizing process.

[Marcia]

With the first site that was mentioned, it's not a very big page, but is very nicely optimized. A simple, straightforward, accurate page title, and as would be expected when a particular topic is discussed, not only in verbal conversation, but on a web page, the topical keyword was used throughout the text, but not in excess. It was naturally conversational on the subject. The keyword was also in relevant link text, again, not in excess. Nice job done on that page. It's a small site, but it's all right on theme and well linked internally.

It's got 204 incoming links, including Yahoo directory, and a great number from .edu and .org sites, most likely due to its high content value.

Google does not use meta tags in determining rankings, but rather the content of the page/site, in addition to its "importance" determined by inbound links, which is why they generally present highly relevant results. That one's just got the all-around winning combination of factors working for it.

The second site is an official State of Florida site. It's to be expected that an official government, non-profit information site will rank highly across the board. They're done with the support of taxpayers' dollars, and perform a public service at all levels. So if search engines or directories give them added value in their algo it's in the public interest and benefits all.

<Note: we tend to avoid mentioning specific sites for the reason Brett_Tabke elaborated on in this thread [webmasterworld.com] ~ Marcia>

[beasscr]

Woops!!! So sorry! Did not realize, actually never thought about it being used as a promotional point. But thank you for bringing it to my attention. I apologize.

Any way, Marcia you had mentioned that one of the sites had 204 incoming links. How do you check to see the amount of incoming links to a site?

[Macguru]

Hi beasscr,

You type "link:www.domainname.com" . Works with most SE.

[Mike_Mackin]

[linkpopularity.com...]

[Macguru]

Hi Mike_Mackin,

Just tryed it with Opera, they seem on some endless loop right now.

Works with Exploder.