Well google works on the most relevent and updated sites. A forum such as this gets to the top of google by topic quickly because we are an ever changing entity.
Personally, some of those who claim
SEO experts, should first look at their designs - some of them, while technically excellent fall down at the first hurdle in terms of visual appeal. If I am a user of your site, the code is only likely get to see it how it is supposed to be seen. If that's awful, no amount of code will improve it.
The design is the most important aspect, the code is what underpins it and is therefore a very important 2nd.
SEO, assess and other factors are all part of this which makes this the more logic-based side of building a site.