Local SEO Question - Ranking with Zero Backlinks?

hippo123

hippo123

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Currently based in South East Asia and I saw alot of single page services websites (plumbing, electrical, electric fans etc etc) that has close to ZERO backlinks and ranking on 1st page of google.

- No content at all
- Backlinks checked with AHRefs, Majestic and many more. Most websites has less than 5 backlinks.
- Probably 2-3 years aged domains
- Ranking for LOCAL keywords only (Local SEO)

How are they doing this? Are they manipulating the CTR via a CTR bot? PBNs? I have never seen such a clean backlink profile before.

Any insights would be valuable.
 
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I could be possible that the competition is so low that Google ranks it just because of on-page seo? Maybe there's no other competition that has backlinks.
 
I have a one page website currently ranking 5th for easy keyword. It has no links at all.
Website has one picture and a couple of text strings.
I can't say there's no competition, I know there's at least another 20 online shops trying to rank for this keyword (it's a brand name).
My other website ranking internal page is 3rd for this keyword locally and 8th globally with just 500 links.
I can't explain why empty page has so good ranking.
 
I could be possible that the competition is so low that Google ranks it just because of on-page seo? Maybe there's no other competition that has backlinks.
Click to expand...

I doubt so actually. For example, plumbing "country" is a highly competitive keyword. It is amazing how some of them rank with just 2/3 referring domains.

Cant really say unless you share specific website links which wont be good. May be they covered their tracks well or they simply have absolutely less competition.
Click to expand...

Ok let me share a website soon. Shall drop you a PM as well.

I have a one page website currently ranking 5th for easy keyword. It has no links at all.
Website has one picture and a couple of text strings.
I can't say there's no competition, I know there's at least another 20 online shops trying to rank for this keyword (it's a brand name).
My other website ranking internal page is 3rd for this keyword locally and 8th globally with just 500 links.
I can't explain why empty page has so good ranking.
Click to expand...

For new domains, I am beginning to think that google penalizes links if your domain backlinks are coming from a country that is not local to you.
How aged was your one page domain? What is the search volume for that keyword both locally and globally?

This is indeed very curious.
 
May be KW competition is very low
 
Check on SEMRUSH you will see the competiotion of your keywords.
 
Might be using PBN which is hidden from majority backlinks checker tools.
 
If the competition is high then check for hidden backlinks but most probably it seems it is because of very low competition they are ranking without even trying...
 
If it's a local business in a local search, Google will rank it higher than normal! For example, a niche I'm targeting with Meathead's amazon thread, I can search for a very wide keyword and will get simple local results. Like if I search for plumbers, I'm going to get local results before anything else, even if they have a low # of backlinks and poor on page SEO.
 
So how does google define a local business?
- more local citations?
- more local referring domains?

This changes the ranking model from a local SEO perspective yes?


UptonGoodwin said:
If it's a local business in a local search, Google will rank it higher than normal! For example, a niche I'm targeting with Meathead's amazon thread, I can search for a very wide keyword and will get simple local results. Like if I search for plumbers, I'm going to get local results before anything else, even if they have a low # of backlinks and poor on page SEO.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Well, low competition KW might be the reason for ranking with zero backlink.
 
They probably blocked the spiders and that is why it might appear to be ranking without links.
 
I live in South Asia (Delhi, India) and here plumber related keywords are not very competitive like west. I just checked one website is ranking on the first page with DA 1, PA 1 for the keyword "Plumber in Delhi" reason is most of the plumbers are uneducated here and don't know website business.
 
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