Strange Ranking On 1st Page Of Google For Competitive Keyword

[getrightmusic]

Hey all, So, I've noticed a site ranking on the first page in Google for a keyword that I have been targeting for years. The keyword is "mixtapes" and pretty competitive. The site, http://www.newyorkmixtapes.com is ranking around #4 in Google. It seemed odd to me so I looked into the site using some of the tools here. Open Explorer showed that they have minimal links. The actual site is pretty spammy also. Does anyone have any idea how this site ranked so high so fast? Is it ranking because I am located in New York? Does Google still put lots of weight on exact match domains? It's just been bothering me because it's a keyword that I put a lot of work into and then the site rolls around an ranks well for it with barely any backlinks. I just wanted to put it out there and see if I'm missing something obvious. Thanks everyone!

[davidangotti]

I believe the keyword has personalized results being shown for you. I just checked the keyword on Google as well as the keyword difficult tool and neither of those are ranking http://www.newyorkmixtapes.com on the first page. Location and a variety of other factors could be affecting your SERP page to have them at number four. Hope this helps.

[KeriMorgret]

I couldn't find it in the first 15 pages of Google either. It could be that it's someone in your social circle that has shared it and that's what is pushing the results up higher.

One thing I like to do before I panic too much is fire up Safari, go to Edit -> Reset Safari to set everything to like it's a fresh install (clear cookies, history, etc. in one easy step), then search when I know that I have a minimum amount of personalization.

[john4math]

Yeah, it's your personalized results.  If you go to http://www.google.com/search?q=mixtapes&pws=0 (the &pws=0 removes personalization), you won't find it on the first page, or in the first several pages of results.

[yeseniagn]

Can you please take a look at this question(see link below)? It's kind of similar but Google results don't make any sense based on results from different SEOMoz tools.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/keyword-ranking-authority-information

Thanks.

[getrightmusic]

Thank you guys! It's definitely personalized results. It's still such a weak domain though to show to me so highly ranked in Google. I guess that's an exact match domain type of thing though. Sometimes I wish my site had my main keyword in it

Thank you all though for your quick responses. Sorry if it was an obvious answer.