This Site Got #1 On Google. Is There Anything I'm Not Seeing Here?

While doing some keyword research, I came across a site that only had a few relatively short posts with few backlinks, and yet it sits at #1 for it's targeted keyword on Google. They only went after one keyword. I won't link to it because I don't want to give it any more juice, but the keyword is "earn affiliate".

The surprising thing is that even though there's not many exact match searches for it every month, the site still got that position over other sites that were PR6 and PR7. I think I know how the author was able to rank it. It looks like all they did was give the content relatively good density and made sure that every single post had that one keyword in it. Do you think there could be other factors that caused such a simple site to rank #1? That's one of the most effortless rankings I've seen besides sites that had a ton of backlinks.

Also, is it a well-known tactic to do that? If that's all it takes, I wonder how long it will be effective, considering the upcoming Google update.

its am EMD and there isn't much competition for that keyword also the site is a few years old.

and site has only 22 exacts locals a month 48 world wide
from adsense you can expect 5 clicks a year (not a joke)

The keyword probably is not worth that much.

It's an EMD
It's got over 50 backlinks
No other sites are targetting that exact keyword, that's why its ranking higher than these PR6 and 7 sites.

I know it's an EMD, but I had heard most of those vanished with the last google update because they were considered "low quality". Note that on the blog she said she ranked the site #1 within a week. Do EMD's usually rank that quickly, even in about 60,000,000 results? I haven't tried ranking an EMD myself, so I can't say. I'm aware there's not much competition for the keyword, but it still seems like it would have been harder to shoot to number 1 and stay there with a regular EMD that has relatively little content.

On the site, she claims that the keyword had 12,000 searches at the time, though I'm aware that right now it's supposedly an average of 46 per month. I'm thinking she was referring to broad matches, but these days even that is only at 9,900 or so. Also, I don't believe we can read too much into the accuracy of the google keyword tool, especially when it comes to such low numbers.

By the way, MajesticSEO only showed 19 of those backlinks, but I suspected I was only seeing part of the picture there. I'm in search of a more accurate tool for that. Still, considering the way most people throw a ton of backlinks at an EMD, I think that number is somewhat low in comparison.

I guess I'm just surprised because it seems like including the keyword in every single blog post would seem too blatant to Google, like it would seem unnatural. When you look at the wording of each title, you can tell it was done on purpose, and therefore there must be a good reason she did that. On the face of it, it does seem like maybe including the keyword in all of those page urls does have a positive effect on SEO, which surprises me. I myself would have never taken that risk.

Now, the real question is, if it does, how far can that be taken?

Its an exact match domain with descent content. And its a low competition keyword as well. It's not even in Google's crosshairs to penalize the site at this moment. From the keyword tool its not even registering any traffic right now.

Usually I tend to see these types of sites stick around until the next algorithmic update.

There isn't 60,000,000 search results, you have to enter "earn affiliate" INCLUDING the quotations for exact match results. Otherwise it will show pages that contain the word 'earn' and 'affiliate' even when they're in completely different positions (i.e. not next to each other). And for checking backlinks I use ahrefs. You have to check both the www. version and the non-www version to see all the links.

And EMD's still work as long as you don't have total crap content and that you build links to your site.

Could be that others got hit by some sort of penalty - seen a lot of these lately - check "make money" niche - you will be surprised by some of the top SERP's all because peeps got literally annihilated by GiggleZoo Inc. late 2012/early 2013