Why do big brands rank so well?

Thanks for saying absolutely nothing. That was some impressive stuff there

Matt I am a big fan of the videos you have produced, and I believe it is awesome Google is open about questions, but I must disagree with the answer on this one as well. Small Businesses stood a chance before big businesses optimized websites and so on. Now it is an uphill battle to get make it some where as a small business owner on the internet.

Usually we find in "most" of the cases that big brands without any content/relevance rank well. Travel websites (Brands) can be best example!

Hey people of the world! IRREGARDLESS is NOT a word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Recognize this!

Big brands have 2 huge advantages: 1) using their already known brand name to leverage more links on all corners of the web, and 2) the capital to spend 5-6 figures on hiring companies for a backlink campaign, which is why they appear for high visibility keywords. It's unfortunate to see how backlinks are still such a major factor in ranking.

mrdavidsinger100 hitit right on the head! fellow brothers, least we forget the magic of true, clean website back links? These "big brand" companies have tons of outsourcers hired and all they do is list in website directories and article directories all around the world. (ok matt ill cutt it out, lol) As long as it dont comprimize any Google standards, Matt here and his team love it! Go true white hatters! sad that yes, some are big brand company's with big brand money!

I do Not Agree..... Search "Playstation Pro". What comes up but a sports store? has not one thing to do with playstation but it gets #1. There is a problem.

The biggest reason that in most cases Big Brands are showing up in the higher rankings is that they tend to send out press releases at a rate of +/- 4 a month. The press get these and post them with links to the brand name sites. No matter how hard mom and pop stores work, they will not have this power of incoming links that brand name sites do.