Why might a page with bad backlinks links be ranking highly?



I’ve seen multiple websites that appear in the #1 spot for various keywords, whose backlink profiles are pretty low quality (i.e. lower quality blog pages). Why wouldn’t Penguin have moved these sites further down in rankings?
jadoray, Idaho

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20 thoughts on “Why might a page with bad backlinks links be ranking highly?”

  1. Many competitive niches are seeing loads of SERPs with pure spam-based sites ranking high. This has been happening since the beginning of SEO time, and while spam-based sites have had their ups and downs, they always come back in the end.

  2. Because Google has no control of it's algorithm. They have no clue what they are doing and simply spill bullshit people are going to take as gospel.

    There is no reason and advanced tech company should allow a site with spam links to rank well but they can't prevent it cause they suck.

    Company isn't worth $6.00 a share …….and it's at $600.00 makes me want to vomit.

  3. if they suck so bad then you should be out buying a book or going to school. Stop complaining about free information that some idiot would charge you money for on craigslist. Just shut up everyone please.

  4. it amazes me that people believe spamming is the way to go. But long term its not. Education and an amazing product is the way to go you fucking idiot loosers with no money.

  5. will you all please shut the fuck up. Google is the best search engine around. Just because your all a bunch of idiots with no naturally built backlinks ( because your product or service sucks cause people don't like it or need it ) doesn't mean you should bash on matt cutts. Just shut up and go build something amazing that people will love. I have just spoke for matt cutts.

  6. Intersting fact, but what about backlinks, that seized to exist? I mean in google/webmasters they appear like an ok existing link from high pr/authority domain. But if you try to visit that link it doesn't exist, it's broken.
    There old link is about 4 years old… something wrong with google?

  7. A good video matt, however please tell me why on google.co.uk there is a fairly new 5 page "advert" site, with spam backlinks and shallow sales focussed content, , ranking #1 for exterior wall coatings, wall coatings and other terms, whereas we have 600 expert author pages on the same subject???

  8. This is my question. StackOverflow answers aren't perfect, but in at least half the cases the question I have is either answered or it gets me well on my way.

    It makes sense that they'd show up when it comes to say an API tutorial in a tangential way, just because developers may have questions about the API and SO may have at least partial answers.

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