I have a silly question about meta keywords

[SEO Travis]

Hi all. I am not new to SEO but something stopped me dead in my tracks.

I have come across a website that has no relevant keywords in their content, pretty much no back links and their content is mediocre at best.
Yet they continue to rank no matter which variation of the keywords used.
I checked their source page, and they are stuffing the meta keyword section with hundreds of keywords  (just a few main keywords with a heck load of variations to that keyword).
Now my question is, what am I missing? THey should not be ranking ..

I cant see any other way than age of the domain and the keyword stuffing in the meta

Any insight?

Well we can't provide insight without a link. At least not an exact insight.

It's possible that site you are referring to is using bot blockers to hide backlinks from SEO tools. It's a common practice because other SEO noobs resort to stealing backlinks from competitors to equal or match their competition.