Month old site and alreasdy ranks 3 for competitive keyword

[anthonytjm]

I know this individual does this with several sites and then offers them for sale to his competitors. Obviously spammy thru and thru, but how can google reward a site thats not even two months old, with 1900 + links with a ranking of #3 for a highly competitive keyword?

Please dont post the actual name or url of the website as we dont want to give him any more credit but this blows my mind as he has done this several times with other sites and never gets penalized.

http://tinyurl.com/b9jysa5

Any ideas as to how he can accomplish this besides almost 2000 links in less than 2 months? How is that even remotely natural?

I know his other sites have been reported to google but they never did anything about it.

Thanks for any feedback.

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Sucks, don't it? Google isn't perfect and there are still many flaws that let sites like this rise to the top.

I've seen this happen many times (especially in the more competitive industries). This is the difference between black hat and white hat seo.

White hat route: keep providing good material, get higher quality backlinks and eventually you'll overtake him (and the results will be more permanent).

Fast & Risky Route: Looks like he just did a big social bookmarking blast to the sites. You can find these services around the web and order them for yourself (get a link report first and see if the sites match up). You'll be on even ground but the downside is the risk of going under next update.

Best of luck,
Oleg