Are Some Websites "White Listed"?

[PrivatePartners]

I track several niches that I am not in so I am not to biased with my own, and I noticed one site despite its rather mediocre quality, never moves.  I have seen other websites rise and fall in rank, a few with pretty good content.

He writes reviews, but very obviously never touched the products he reviews.  However I see some other sites with real photos, and good advice for making a decision - they will sit on page two or three.

I havent done a lot of research other than the size of the sites, and the links, and they are about equal. Sometimes the ranking site is smaller (its about 90 pages in google).  The other sites I have seen have more content on one topic as well, which is interesting google opts for his one page "once over" review over something more in depth and authentic.

It got me thinking about whether some sites are white listed by google, as in hand picked to rank despite what else is out there. Is this possible?

[Chris.Menke]

If that were the case, I'd certainly apply for white listing.  I could charge my clients for getting them white listing too.  I might even start a poker site and see if I could get that white listed!

No, really, I've never heard of such a thing. It's all algorithmic.