One more example related to exact match domains.
no seo for a 3 years,(about 1000 monthly visitors) added google analytics yesterday to catch 404 , and submited sitemap.
Competitors are way too good for this kind of site, but still. For most competitive keywoards the site is on first SERP.
I think stable number of visitors for a years does the job, supporting such an unfriendly to google robot website.
