Why Is This Site Number 1 In G?

[retired_member34]

First, could you Google "Cowbridge"? I have the site h-ubc-owbridge-.com (without the hyphens) at number 1.

Now I know this isn't a competitive term, it's a small but prosperous town in South Wales. This site however has only been up a couple of months. It has links from only one site, twitter, plus a Facebook group (that I can see), all of which use the anchor text of the site name not just "Cowbridge". Yet it out ranks the Google map, the wiki page, and the exact match .co.uk.

Why? Any opinions from the resident SEO gurus warmly welcomed.

 

[Aiden Roberts]

At first glance I would say the unique, up to date and regular content is ranking it high, recent changes in G are rewarding exactly the above attributes.

Regards

Aiden

 

[The Ferryman]

Probably some clever geo-seo expert has parked cowbridge.co.uk on it, and Google will be ranking it for the .co.uk being the best match.

Well done!

Regards

Bruce

 

[Ashton]

cowbridge.co.uk (686 backlinks) has a redirect to it, which is transferring most of that SEO value to you.

 

[retired_member34]

cowbridge.co.uk (686 backlinks) has a redirect to it, which is transferring most of that SEO value to you.

That would explain it, thanks guys I missed that one. (It's not my site btw).

 

[retired_member34]

A further question to those who answered before, this gets more interesting!

The 301 is still in place from the exact match domain cowbridge.co.uk, a domain that has held the no 1 spot for years, to the new site.

However the new domain that is 301ed to, is losing the top spot, it alternates between 1 and 2, sometimes being topped by another old local site.

This suggests to me that the 301 is passing the benefits of the inlinks, PR etc, but perhaps not the exact match benefit? Any opinions very welcome..

 

[retired_member21]

IMO you won't inherit the exact match bonus - that is calculated on a domain basis. You are purely telling Google that the domain has been permanently moved and it should redirect traffic/rankings/pagerank etc to the new domain - you will lose the exact match bonus. It's probably still thinking about it - just give it time and carry on linking to the new domain.

 

[retired_member34]

IMO you won't inherit the exact match bonus - that is calculated on a domain basis.

That is what I suspected from the loss in rank, but have never really considered before. I'll continue to watch it, see if the new domain continues to fall.

(It's not my site btw).