How does a competing website with clearly black hat style SEO tactics, have a far higher domain authority than our website that only uses legitimate link building tactics?
-
Through SEO Moz link analysis tools, we looked at a competing websites external followed links and discovered a large number of links going to Blog pages with domain authorities in the 90's (their blog page authorities were between 40 and 60), however the single blog post written by this website was exactly the same in every instance and had been posted in August 2011.
Some of these blog sites had 160 or so links linking back to this competing website whose domain authority is 49 while ours is 28, their Moz Trust is 5.43 while ours is 5.18.
An example of some of the blogs that link to the competing website are:
http://advocacy.mit.edu/coulter/blog/?p=13
http://pest-control-termite-inspection.posterous.com/\
However many of these links are "no follow" and yet still show up on Open Site Explorer as some of this competing websites top linking pages.
Admittedly, they have 584 linking root domains while we have only 35, but if most of them are the kind of websites posted above, we don't understand how Google is rewarding them with a higher domain authority.
Our website is www.anteater.com.au
Are these tactics now the only way to get ahead?
-
Thanks for the info guys
-
If the links that are passing juice are media related, government related or edu type links then those can carry a ton of weight. They are worth Morty than a thousand crappy links combined.
-
Also, out of those 500 plus links they have coming in, they might have 10-20 really high quality links mixed in that are really passing juice.
-
Domain age can also be a factor. Also remember that when Panda was released an astounding 12% of sites were impacted. This either means the rest of the sites on the net are all white hat or just slipped through the cracks. Googles algorithm is by far one of the most advanced in the industry but the web is vast and it might take a while for your competitors to get caught for there tactics. I agree with EGOL, focus on your site. Social promotion and conversions. In time white hat will prevail.
-
I am not trying to be a wise guy... just saying what I would tell a friend or an employee... and the opinion that I hold for myself.
I think that you have discovered that the trust and authority numbers are not what google is using to rank websites. In fact google in the past couple of months has dramatically altered the way that they consider links.
Panda, nofollow, and google information never yet revealed make the link metric waters really muddy. There is a really good chance that lots of links have been made worthless... and others are depreciating assets.
I am betting my money elsewhere.
So, the most reliable way to advance the success of your website is to focus your efforts on increasing the appreciation of your website by your visitors.
Name the most successful sites on the web. This is what they do first and foremost leaving SEO as a five minute job for each page of content.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I want to use a photo from an official website for my own website.IF YES HOW?
Lets suppose i downloaded a photo from a XYZ website and want to use it on my own website, and also i want to rank for same keyword, and would like to rank just below XYZ site, i know there could be copyright issue. what can be done to avoid this issue. Can i manipulate the picture in a such way that it is usable. if yes how? How can i use that official websites picture for my website, i mean, can i cite that website as a source? what is the best practice in this case? i dont want to use stock photo,i really like xyz sites pics.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
SEO of blogging websites
What are the best practices of doing SEO of article/blogging websites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Website/SEO Audit Needed
We've been outsourcing our link building to India for the past 3 years and the results were pretty good up until beginning of this year. What they were essentially doing is putting links into directories, a few per month, and posting a few articles per month. Out of our top 10 keywords, 8 got into top 10. Then something happened around Jan 1 last year, our ranking started dropping, falling out of the top 50, before settling around 20-30ish. We disavowed most of the low quality links since then. Also, very odd, all the top ranking competitors all fell (including me) and were replaced by less "specialized" companies who sold a broad range of products (for example: all parts of the car, rather than someone who just focused on mufflers). Theres also other differences but again I can't put a finger on it. I'd like to find someone who can do a detailed audit of our site, and our competitors, what happened to cause the drop, and why the new top positions sites are ranked high. And I really don't have time to do an audit myself. Our site is American Hospitality Furniture dot com. Any feed back would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AHH8880 -
Website Layout and SEO
Hi All, As a brand new user to Wordpress and having read articles and forum posts I have purchased Studiopress Genesis Enterprise Theme. QuestionWordpress like any traditional bespoke site can be written to incorporate variations of columns structures.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
What is the best column strategy or page layout strategy for SEO? Thanks Mark0 -
Do Banner Ads Help In Link Building?
We have been contacting some webmasters for building links, but a lot of them will only do banner ads on there site. Is having a keyword rich alt tag on the banner ad and a do follow link to our site just as good? Would like to hear your thoughts and l experiences in trying to leverage these banner ads to help in seo ranking. Thank you in advance for your input!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | anchorwave0 -
Advertising links hurt SEO?
I'm working with a publisher who said that having DFA links on his site will hurt his SEO. He is taking my link and pointing it back to his site and then to mine. Does that sound right to you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GFTMarketer0 -
Linking to Authorities
Hello, I know that if its good for the user, its not a bad move. But for this question I am specifically asking for how it affects my ranking. Does it help my ranking to link to appropriate authority sites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tylerfraser
Have you done any tests to see if linking out to authoritative sites like .gov info pages, industry leaders, etc. help with a sites ranking. I am thinking about taking of all of these outgoing links and just link to my important pages. Thank you, Tyler0 -
Aside from creative link bait, what's a solid link building strategy involve?
All things considered, directories, blogs, articles, press releases, forums, social profiles, student discount pages, etc, what do you consider to be a strong, phased, link building strategy? I'm talking beyond natural/organic link bait, since many larger accounts will not allow you to add content to their website or take 6 months to approve a content strategy. I've got my own list, but would love to hear what the community considers to be a strong, structured, timeline-based strategy for link building.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stevewiideman1