Do the "Gooroos" really know what's going on

[MasterMind]

I've been doing keyword research this morning on blackheads and what I've found with this set of keywords doesn't make sense to me.

I've analyzed 10 of 46 potential keyword phrases and there seem to be only 4 possibilities for what I'm finding.

1. Gooroos are lying to us.
2. Google is lying to us.
3. I'm freaking stupid.
4. Links don't matter

Approx 40% of the sites ranking for keywords have ABSOLUTERLY NO BACKLINKS.

Approx 20% of the top 10 sites found for kewords have 10 or less links.

Youtube has ove 18 BILLION backlinks.

BTW, all the keywords I've checked have at least 80 searches per day up to 180 searches per day. The stats may change as I get into higher traffic keywords but to me this is absurd. I didn't pay much attention to the pr of sites but most were a pr2 or below and a lot were pr 0.

This does not make sense to me.

Either I've found a niche goldmine or I'm to stupid to understand what's really happening. At the moment I'd say it's about 50/50 for each possibility.

Got any explanations for this stuff Mike? I sure don't unless onpage factors have become a lot more inportant.

[mikedeering]

I'm wondering if Google is 'hiding' all or some of the back links for typical sites.

[MasterMind]

Links in MS come from Majestic so that shouldn't be a problem. While researching the same niche I needed an authority site to link to and there wasn't one in the top 30 results. All were pr0 1 or 2. Also saw a lot of sites that were search engine related. Links lists at a lot of other places. Ask, Yahoo and another small SE.

Even adult results suck. Did a search for someone +naked and number 3 result was a careerbuilder.c0om jobs site and all it had when I checked it was a search box with my term in it and all it said was "nothing found for someone naked. The rest were all full of links to nothing that I was looking for.

At the moment googles results suck as bad as they did a few years ago when all the returned was sites full of outlinks that were bs sites.

[mikedeering]

Sounds like too me, Penguin was released without it first being fully tested.

[admin]

Approx 40% of the sites ranking for keywords have ABSOLUTERLY NO BACKLINKS.

Approx 20% of the top 10 sites found for kewords have 10 or less links.

Right now - because so many sites have lost backlinks - it is a time of transition where those sites who have general backlinks or social signals or some kind of positive social signal are getting top rankings without actually deserving them.

That's why I think it is so easy right now to get a brand new site on page 1.

I thought it would be harder but all my new sites are ranking faster than before this whole thing.

I think it's because so many sites lost links and are connected in some way.

[MasterMind]

Lo, I rank difficulty 1-10 and when I see all those sites without links in the top 10 it's an automatic 1.

[mikedeering]

Software programmers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

[admin]

I spoke to someone else who also confirmed that a few good links are doing enough to get sites on top.

All those people who lost rankings are focused on trying to clean up their sites and get so called bad links removed when they should be focusing getting NEW links

Now is a good time to start fresh sites doing all the right things.