How to combat competitor buying who is buying links and winning.
-
I have a competitor who is buying links in the Featured Advertiser Links section of Washington Post online.
His backlink profile is a very low # of referring domains. (38ish) with a good bit being repeats of Wahington Post.
My question, is their strategy within Google guidelines, and what can I do to combat it?
Thanks.
-
Thank you for helping me find them.
<a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">target</a><a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">='_blank' href="http://www.weitzlux.com/mesothelioma_438.html" rel="nofollow">Mesothelioma</a>, <a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">target</a><a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">='_blank' href="http://www.weitzlux.com/asbestos/attorney_433.html" rel="nofollow">Asbestos Attorney</a>, <a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">target</a><a <span="" class="webkit-html-tag">='_blank' href="http://www.weitzlux.com/orthoevra/patch_7852.html" rel="nofollow">Ortho Evra</a>
When I view the source they have "nofollow", which should remove their value for ranking a website and make these links OK with Google.
Would not bother me if my competitors were doing this. In fact, it would reveal to me that they think they are makin' munny.
-
Craig, thanks. Not really a fan of reporting either, just a little frustrated.
Egol, yes the links are in source code.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/postpoliticstv.html
-
When I go to the WP and find a page with a box of links labeled "Featured Advertiser Links" and I then view the source code of the page I do not see those links in the code.
Is that what you see when you do this?
-
Well many newspaper and magazines online have to sell advertising to make money because a lot of them hold a fair bit of power it is a link that could be worthwhile.
Personally if i was you id worry less about what links others are getting, and concentrate more on getting your own links, and if they are up to any unethical link building then it will only be a matter of time before that catches up on them.
I know its frustrating when someone is buying their way above you in the rankings, but that's life and in most niches people will do what it takes to get there.
There are various techniques which can be called link building, i would say the one you are suggesting falls into the " grey area " where it is considered to be bad practise however works a treat.
I wouldnt consider the washington post to be a link farm, not for now anyhow. And i know locally online newspapers in my area who offer articles on their websites for a fee/donation or whatever you want to call it.
Im not a fan of reporting things like that, whats for them wont go past them.
-
Thanks for response Craig, It is just links under the category Featured Advertiser Links. So it is a bit different than a traditional advertisement with a link. There are a number of links to different pages/products on their website.
Could/should they be reported?
-
Buying links is not something that you should do, however if he paid for an advert in the Washington Post to advertise his business, which so happens to also link to his website then so be it.
Buying links on link farms and similar sites will eventually harm a website. Ive saw this done and can work for a while, however i dont use this approach and would advise against it.
To combat it, you make sure you keep putting good content on your website, and work even harder at getting good quality relevant links to this content in order to rank well.
Quality over quantity always wins.
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
-
Best competitor analysis tool comparing my links with competitor links?
Hello All, Can anyone tell me best competitor analysis tool comparing my links with competitor links? Tool which define quality of links either low quality or spammy links etc? Thanks!
Competitive Research | | devdan0 -
Alternatives To Link Detective
Hi, A while back I used link detective to scan through our OSE reports. However, it seems that the site is no longer maintained and the system no longer seems to work, ie I upload the CSV file and then when i check back it leads to a blank screen. I wonder if anyone knows of a similar software as its functionality was very useful. Thanks
Competitive Research | | bobanna1 -
Problem Adding a competitor
I am having a problem adding a competitor at one of my campaigns... I am not sure if I should add the link of my competitor so I wont 🙂 the link is with a /path competitorlink.gr/magazine Anyone knows what should I do?
Competitive Research | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
What if your content is way better than competitors?
Do you have any suggestions if you are being outranked by competitors even though your page has way better content and better links?
Competitive Research | | Charlessipe0 -
External Links Massive Drop
In Google Webmaster Tools I have well over 1000 links. Now I appreciate that this will vary a lot compared to Open Site Explorer but that's showing just 45. Previously, before the last OSE update on the 28th I had 182 links so this is a big drop. My competitors use similar software (vbulletin forum) and have all increased in links and my actual links haven't dropped at all according to Google Wemaster Tools.) My MozRank has dropped a lot, as has the authority and trust. I know this is only a guide but it's very frustrating. My PageRank has also dissapeared (although was only 1 a month or two ago) so really not sure what's going on. Does anyone have any ideas. I haven't done anything that would penalise me in Google, just some tweaking of certain pages to try and help relevance and rankings. Cheers.
Competitive Research | | Optimise0 -
List of all outbound links to a specified site
For example, I want to search for every link to my site from stumbleupon. Is there a way to do this? Much thanks in advance!
Competitive Research | | TrevorMcKendrick0 -
What is the right way to due a competitive Link analysis?
Trying to use the saturation report suggestion with no luck for google.com,and looking for away to benchmark either Pagerank or page authority to figure out how many links are required to overr take competitors from diversified sources. What is the process to do this to get the best results for the client.
Competitive Research | | bmcfarlane0 -
Viewing Specific Links in OSE - For a Specific Month
(1) Can I use OSE to see the number of links per month a site acauired over the past year (month by month)? For example, I might be interested if I see a competitor acquired a surprisingly high number of links during December, 2010. (2) Can I use OSE to see the a list of links a site acquired during a specific time, such as December of 2010? For example, if I see a competitor suddenly acquired an unusually high number of links in December, 2010, I'd like to see a list of those links, to figure out how they acquired those links. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | GregMoore0