A Question for the SEO Experts on here

One thing that's always baffled me is how certain sites rank, regardless of Google updates, spam links etc. I would love to know how these sites rank and for so long, with the backlink profile that they have.
Here's an example;
Go to google.com, search 'putlocker'
The top result and a few others on the top page have always been there, regardless of google updates etc. If you look at the sites, they're just images with hardly any content, so prime candidates for a thin penalty. Go to ahrefs and take a look at their backlinks and you see hundreds of thousands of links.
We get told of the best ways to build sites with on page and off page SEO and these guys blatantly break the rules and you think they would just rank in the short terms but they have been there for years.
Can any SEO experts out there take a look and work out how these guys are ranking?

Outing other people's sites is not what we do here.

Having said that, it seems they are doign something right. Try to reverse their technique and get there yourself. If you do make it, you'll be sorry you shared it here .

No one will openly tell you details like that on a public forum.

I didn't specifically mention the site, apologies if what I did do isn't right.
I would love to reverse their technique but don't know where to start, which is why I asked the question. No content, poor on page SEO, lots of links, ranks really well. Goes against everything I've read on here!

They rank as useful content for humans.

And then they get organic backlinks from humans, and it is unique backlink.

Domain age also affect the rankings of your web site

1. Could have hidden PBN links.
2. Could be using a 301 redirect
3. All of their tier 1 links you see could be boosted with millions of spam links in tier 2, 3, maybe even 4.

The possibilities are endless.

Google still has trouble stopping sites using spam links, I dont think the website owner is doing anything special its just google lagging behind.

Domain Age matter off course but here this isn't case... if you look little better all don't have PR at all not PA/DA at all lot of new website from last year... so even try to help someone here or don't write just to increase number of posts. Like I see this on fast checkup there is no big competition for this keyword at all and because of that all EDM domain are ranked on first page... if you look at second page there are a lot of stupid websites not even optimized for this keyword ranked... You can easy rank for this keyword I mean easy there are even available some net, org domains like putlockerbz.org and putlockerbz.net with exact search volume for keyword "putlocker bz" 40,500. And you can easy rank this domains on first page for all other ones and off course main one "putlocker"

Not sure how they have been there forever when the top 3 results have a domain age of 2 years or less. That being said, 2 of the three have the keyword "putlocker" within their domain. Although EMD or partials don't weight like they used to, it's still a heavy ranking factor. Also, just looking over their backlink profiles, they look natural. Or artificially natural More than ever, Google is understanding natural versus unnatural link building. Remember, this age of machine learning. They look at patterns. When the pattern doesn't match what they deem as natural, it's a red flag. Still easy to game if you know what you're doing.

This term would be pretty easy to rank FYI. At least on the first page.

Or even putlockersmovies.net is free with exact 246.000 exact searches... lol go and grab it and rank it easy...

In the example you described, the user would obviously be searching for that particular site. It makes sense for google to show that site, as it is exactly what they are searching for.

This is why big brands keep ranking no matter what and this is what search is all about - giving the end user what he is looking for. At the end of the day, google is just a business and it free to break or bend its rules for what it deems to be the benefit of its users.

As for what you describe as thin content, well, that is relative as there are different kinds of content. Sometimes thin is good quality, take for example the piratebay site which I heard is only a few Mb in size but it delivers exactly what the user is searching for.

Don't forget that none of the backlink profile tools account for disavow files. I can have millions of crappy links pointing to my site, but if I disavow them they won't affect my rankings while you will still see them in ahrefs.

And what nad999 says about thin content. Thin content is fine as long as it suits its purpose.

Thanks for all the replies guys. Believe me when I say it's not as easy as some of you say, I talk from experience. If the top site was to be checked manually by Google, there is no reason for it to pass a manual check. An algorithm, it can pass for sure. But under Google's quality guidelines, it would have spam links, thin content and any other penalty. But numerous updates later, they still rank. I say good luck to them but would love to know how!
This is just one example in one niche by the way. In various niches, certain keywords have certain websites which normally just wouldn't rank anywhere, based on best practice on page and off page SEO.
If anyone thinks they can replicate something similar and sustain it, drop me a PM