Why is this ranking first in Google Places for this term....?
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"Best Bar In Chicago" - http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=best+bar+in+chicago
They have only 5 Google reviews, and their local directory reviews are suspect. One of them goes to rateclubs.com and it's not even a page for their business, while one of them doesn't have user reviews, it's just an editorial review. The other one at superpages.com doesn't even link back to their site, it links to their restaurants.com profile. What is going on here? I've been trying to figure this out for a while as their first place ranking has been solidified for quite some time now. I can also tell you that a few of the bars listed below them have a MUCH higher profile and are better known. You can see that just by the reviews.
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The official Google Response is: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=7091
Looking at the link profiles for a few of them they're certainly not the strongest, the only thing I can see that they have over the competition is the fact that 'Chicago' is in their domain name.
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Use a tool like open site explorer to check their backlinks. They probably have a handful of well-aged links from high authority domains that are buffering them against spotty reviews. The fact that they've ranked first for so long probably helps them stay high more than anything.
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