Linkspun.com

So, thought I'd open this for discussion by showing an example first:

Search google for "blowjobs" ... do you see the #1 site as http://www.blowjobvision.com/ ?

Don't click on the link, click on the "cached" link on google's page right next to the url. Do you see anything interesting?

You searched for the term "blowjobs". The #1 page at google for that term, according to the cache, does not even have the term "blowjobs" on it. Look for this text on that cached page: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: blowjobs"

So, how does a page get to the top spot at google for a highly competitive, highly sought after, term like "blowjobs" without even having that term appear on the page?

The answer: back links with that term listed as the anchor text.

I could point out other things that I've seen with this site, and in the serps in general, but thought that I'd see if anyone else had any thoughts regarding both this and the direction that google is going.

I've been doing SEO, fairly successfully, for over 14 years now and have seen lots of techniques come and go. I'm curious to see what you other SEO Guru's see and think.

There are a lot of factors that affect SERPS... every few months people try to come out with the idea that one factor completely overwhelms all other factors and in my experience that never proves to be true. As one example, bounce rate absolutely affects SERPs in google. The site you are showing most likely has a very very low bounce rate. A link farm with a 85-95% bounce rate would not do nearly as well even if it had the same or similar number of backlinks.

The algo changes often, it most likely is not even the same in all regions and increasingly google is trying to personalize searches so two users in the same region do not find exactly the same results. Attacking the problem with a single strategy based on one factor of the formula without regard for the others is a poor tactic. It makes your ranks much more fragile when the algo changes, requires that you out-pace all competitors by an even wider margin and ignores ways to boost your ranks which can be much cheaper and easier than acquiring an even more massive amount of backlinks.

Yes backlinks are extremely important. Relevant links from quality sites can not be overlooked. However, I would be very wary about the idea of putting all my eggs in one basket or going after backlinks to the virtual exclusion of things like quality content, low bounce rates, targeted on page SEO, authoritative entries and certifications etc etc etc....

That's my 2 cents...

Yep, Relentless...as Google has pointed out they have over 200 factors that they consider in ranking a site. I found that one in particular noteworthy because it did not have that keyword anywhere on the page. If you look at it's Alexa, it's bounce rate is not that great...not horrible, but a bit below average. I realize that Alexa's br and google's may be somewhat different, but in comparing Alexa with a number of my sites I find it to be consistent.

I was hoping some folks might point out other sites, similar to this, that have blatant factors that appear to be causing them to do well in the serps. I like LinkSpun and was hoping we could get a good discussion going regarding SEO and what folks are currently seeing.

Unless I'm missing something, that site only has 154 backlinks. Brand new domain, piss poor on site optomization and a pr of 2.

Still think it's backlinks?

Elegant, google shows it with 1890 links...of course the majority of those are internal links, but those count as well.

To what do you attribute that sites success?

Not all backlinks are the same.

1,840 poorly planned low ranking weak links from brand new sites with no weight to send are not the same as 1,840 backlinks from aged quality high ranking sites with plenty of weight to send which are carefully targeted. If the site for example has a backlink from 50 of the other top 100 sites for that term it's only 50 links but wow that would be a huge amount of weight for that term.

I put pretty much ZERO stock in anything Alexa says (linkspun is Alexa 18,045 at them moment lol) and Google backlink reports are often very far from accurate when you do not have access to tools/analytics for the site. That site may have 50K backlinks... or 1,000 from some of the highest trafficked most keyword worthy sites presently.

Since you have been tracking it, how long has it been #1 btw? Having a site reach #1 for a few days is entirely different from having it settle there for a few months.

I agree, backlinks from sites that place well for their targeted keyword phrases are best...exponentially so if the site has few outgoing links. Google is changing the way that it displays backlinks. I noticed that Webmaster Tools is showing a lot more backlinks than it used to. One of my sites, Debauchery.com has just under 1.4 million backlinks according to Webmaster Tools. Yahoo shows it at just under 150,000. Google Index, on SEO Quake, shows 3,910.

When I am looking for SEO info, some of the places that I look at are SEO Quake esp Yahoo links, Alexa, and the serps. I don't put too much emphasis on any one piece of information. But all can be used as a guideline. Alexa can be faked, pr can be faked, backlinks can be bogus or irrelevant, placement in the serps over time is a good gauge.

The site that I used in the example for this thread has had that #1 spot for over a month. I noticed it back then and have been watching to see if it shot up then fell...so far it's stayed there. I finally decided to use it to start this SEO thread.

DaCaptain wrote:The site that I used in the example for this thread has had that #1 spot for over a month. I noticed it back then and have been watching to see if it shot up then fell...so far it's stayed there. I finally decided to use it to start this SEO thread.

Yeah, I do appreciate the thread and the data-point. I've already added the site to my own watchlist. If I notice anything unusual I'll let you know.

Yeah, I do appreciate the thread and the data-point. I've already added the site to my own watchlist. If I notice anything unusual I'll let you know.

Sounds good.

I'm not sure if the cache has changed since the orinal post in this thread was made, but while 'blowjobs' does not appear, 'blowjob' does appear, several times, and of course it's in the domain as well. I think that google is probably smart enough to associate the singular with the plural form of a word and consider that as being related to the anchor text. i.e., it should be obvious that the page holds relevance to the anchor text pointed at it, and that this isn't a prank google bomb like the infamous 'miserable failure' example from several years ago.

All good observations, AmateurFlix.

Btw, straight from the horses mouth:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebma ... y5pqc4gKhg

...and I noticed that that site is #2 today. Xhamster jumped above him when I looked.

DaCaptain