Search Engine mystery for the experts
 

Search for "britney spears":

http://www.google.com/search?q=britney+spears

And check out result #9:
http://www.shavlik.com/

The mystery is how did they get this ranking? Any ideas?

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We all know that google ranks site via link popularity, so checking the link popularity of shavlik.com is the first thing I did:

http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Awww.shavlik.com
http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3Ashavlik.com

And I find this site (and others) listed with no links to shavlik.com:
http://www.angelfire.com/pop2/britne...PGlisting.html


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BTW, I came up with this from reading this article:
http://www.yafla.com/~dforbes/google...techniques.htm

google doesn't rank according to link popularity, but uses page ranking.

I don't think it helps this company to appear #9 for "britney"...

Right, I did not mean it was solely ranked by link popularity, but it makes a big difference.

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