Why is this Page Ranking for such a competitive keyword?

[mstpeter]

Hello MOZ Community!

I have a question, I am hoping someone can help me understand. I am looking at this URL: http://goo.gl/BkSish

...it is ranking for this Keyword: POS Systems

Now, this seems to be a pretty new URL, with few links being generated to it, as seen here:

1. Open Site Explorer: http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/comparisons?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shopkeep.com%2Fpos-system
2. Majestic SEO: https://www.majesticseo.com/reports/site-explorer/link-profile?folder=&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shopkeep.com%2Fpos-system&oq=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shopkeep.com%2Fpos-system&IndexDataSource=F&wildcard=1

QUESTION: Can someone help us understand how or why this page is ranking so well, so quickly, for such a competitive Keyword? Thank you!

[trung.ngo]

The result set for this query is very interesting, lots of diversity in query intent: you have have definitions, brands who specialize in pos systems, reviews of pos systems, and brands who have pos systems, but whose primary focus is not the pos system itself.

While the Shopkeep page you linked to does not have the most links or highest authority of the pages in the first page of results, it is the strongest domain from in the 'brands who specialize in pos systems' category noted above. My hypothesis is that Google believes the primary user intent for the query is to purchase a pos system, therefore, is giving favor to the most credible brand whose business appears to focus primarily on pos systems.

If you look broader than just the page in OSE, you'll see that 'shopkeep pos' is the second-most used anchor text for inbound links to the whole site, representing a total of 29,145 links from 91 different domains. This would support the above hypothesis that Google finds the brand to be highly credible for pos systems because it is so often used alongside the brand name.

Hope that sparks some ideas for further research!

-Trung