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SEO in stackoverflow

Stack Overflow pages seem to do ever so well on Google — i.e. come up very high. Several times, things like this have happened to me:

  • Google-search for answer to question before thinking of using SO. Don't like the results that come up. Ask on SO. Keep Googling anyway in the background. SO page starts appearing high up on Google results.
  • Encounter a quotation in an SO answer. Google it. SO answer just seen is the top result.

Why / how does it do so well?

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    Although a partial answer is that Google is serving custom results to everyone now, which means if they note that you often open SO results, they'll rank them higher in searches they're serving to you.
    – me_and
    Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 17:25
  • wow! finally... an SEO question that actually belongs on the Trilogy!
    – quack quixote
    Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 17:32
  • It's easy... There's a secret Google cheat code that boosts your Google pagerank... It's ALT-F4 ALT-F4 ENTER
    – Tamas Czinege
    Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 17:35
  • 1
    meta.stackexchange.com/questions/14056
    – juan
    Commented Dec 10, 2009 at 17:36

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It's because they're relevant to what's being searched for. The fact that SO is likely linked to all over the internet as a programming reference now increases the overall PageRank.

The fact that it's a very active site with direct answers to the questions in the title only leads it to be ranked higher too.

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And now I can offer my partial answer properly!

If you're signed into Google, Google will keep track of all searches you make, and what results you click on. If Google notice that you seem to like results from SO, it'll list them higher to make them easier to find for you.

Plus, let's be fair, the content at SO is very good compared with quite a number of other programming forums!

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