Is google ranking really this?

Hi

I looked at a site with 4/10 which is at the top of some search queries.
Now I thought that google's ranking is calculated by the number of links that is exchanged with your site.
Well when doing this search on google:
link:http://www.the-lord-charles.co.za
Then you can see that there is only 4 links to this site.
How does this site achieve such a high ranking with only 4 sites linked to it.
Is google's site ranking based on link exchanges or is there another trick?

pagerank is typically calculated by the number/relevancy/pagerank of incoming links to a given site.
the pageranks for the sites linking to the one you're talking about could have been quite high, thusly effecting that one.
google recently updated the pagerank, (which they do quarterly apparently) which could have had something to do with it as well...it may not be listing all sites pointing at it currently. i think there's a tool on seochat.com that shows incoming links.

hope that helps.

check uptimebot.com to see what other engines show as incoming links for the site. Google only shows a small amount of them to make things more difficult for SEO's.

gogole ranks sometimes surprising

I have seen "Under Construction" websites that got rank of 3 or 4. Google ranking in my opinion is unfair but apparently they are going to make it worse.

I heard that "number of staff" in a web site will be a factor in ranking websites.

It has been my long standing understanding that the Google ranking is along the lines of...

Over a significant length of time (eg one hundred years, or the lifespan of a human, or something similar):

if a user followed a link chosen at random on the webpage they were currently viewing and then did the same on the next page on which they arrived, and then the next page etc, then the Google ranking is the probability (expressed on a scale of 1 to 10) that the user will end up back at the original starting page.

Hence alot of it is related to how many links end up pointing into your site, but also how many links come into your site compared to how many links link to other sites. You could have 1 million links, but if every other website in the world had 1 billion links then your ranking would still be rubbish!

I think that's the logic behind it anyway. Please anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Andy

For Google it's not only the total links from other websites that link to your site. It's also whether those incoming links are relevent to your industry. What their page rank is and the quality of their website. Also, if their title tag has a keyword that you also promote on your site.

There are many factors to consider and now with Google's new engine it also means history of your domain and much more.

You used to could get good ranking with hundreds of incoming links. Google is on to that now and will consider your website a link farm in some cases.

Just remember to link with quality websites that relate to your industry and that have good page rank themselves (PR4 or above). Google now looks at the quality of links and not the total of links.

With the new engine there are still many sites at the top that don't belong there but you'll begin seeing them disappear now with their new rules. It just all takes time with as many sites as there are on the Internet.

Vickie