I've been watching this site - 10bestdesign.com - for well over a year now, and they seem to be a completely immovable force for some really competitive keywords. I have researched them extensively, and the only thing they seem to be doing is press releases and buying social media fans. Please please please, does anyone else have any ideas for why this company seems to be an unstoppable force for keywords like, "best web design companies", "best web design agencies" and hundreds of variations.
Have you been searching anonymously or with a browser logged in to Google and therefore getting personalised results. If google thinks you like the site it'll throw them into the results more often. I'm in NZ and they didn't turn up in a search for me - I went as far as page 5 Before I got too excited about those search terms I'd really want to look at the search numbers - do people really search for those phrases?
Oh I definitely know they are appearing #1 or top 5 across the U.S. for those terms and related. I would say I'm pretty advanced for this stuff and I'm dumbfounded by the results they're getting. (eg. yes I've done all the anonymous stuff, even using proxy browsers to change IP locations) Regarding the importance of the keywords, I'm probably divulging too much, but they are extremely important phrases.