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
-
I can see competitors ranking for certain long-tail keywords but cannot find them on web pages. What am I missing?
Hi there. I'm pretty new to SEO and I've been doing a fair bit of training but there is one aspect I have yet to grasp. When I carry out keyword research, I get all these results and I understand the metrics. What I'm not getting is, when a competitor is ranking highly for say "where can I buy fresh turkeys", I assume that that phrase must appear somewhere on the page, but it doesn't. I realise I'm just not thinking about this in the right way. Can anyone offer clarification, please? Kind regards, Bruce
Competitive Research | | BruceBarbour0 -
Missing tab in Competitor research Template
The template provided in https://moz.com/blog/competitor-analysis-for-seo is missing the 'Audit Data' Tab. Can you please update it or share the Original Template
Competitive Research | | AnkitaDwivedi3 -
Competitors ranking in top three with worse SEO
Ok I am at a loss. Our client is trying to rank for keywords like "dental assistant programs utah", but they are still on the bottom of page 1/top of page 2. The guys in the top 3 have terrible SEO. No links, newer domains, etc. I looked into it extensively and learned about the "honeymoon period" people talk about but we are long past that. I've looked through webmaster tools to see if there are any issues, and I can't find a thing. Anyone have an idea of what we could be doing wrong that is making us be put down so far on the page? Before I got here the SEO guys were doing older tactics which I think was starting to hurt them with penguin and what not so I tried my best to delete the crap content and clean everything up on the website. thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it.
Competitive Research | | boyackp0 -
Why is my competitor's site ranking #1?
I'm about to work for a local business website that offers cleaning services and products. The keyword they want the most is ruled by a very odd site; My client's competitor's site has been around for 7 years. (Less than the average of it's competitors. Less than my client's) Has 1 backlink. Lower PA MR MT & DA than any other in the SERP. It's a 1 page site made with Flash. They do not have FB or Twitter accounts. So I thought maybe they were ranking so well because of their traffic. But neither my client, me or my coworkers have ever heard of this company. And yet, they are ranking #1. And the only thing I notice that might have helped is that the title of their page is the exact keyword and nothing more. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | Eblan0 -
As anyone used this before the hoth for Links building???
http://www.thehoth.com Links building company Is it safe or waste of money
Competitive Research | | spidersite1 -
Comparing competitor folder path
Hi All I've just take on a new client and need to be able to compare their performance with a competitor's sub-folder site. The competitor is http://thebestof.co.uk/local/brightonandhove/ I've tried to add that to the competition structure in my campaign but can't use "Path" info. What do you guys do in these types of cases. BTW - TheBestOf.co.uk is a franchise with a /local/CityNames across the UK
Competitive Research | | stevecounsell0 -
Best Link Analysis Tool?
Now that the Yahoo Site Explorer is not usable on sites unless they are in your Bing Webmaster Tools, what is the best tool out there to see an accurate list of inbound links to a site? Google tools are still pretty unreliable from what I can see...
Competitive Research | | Bandicoot0 -
Inbound links
Is the any report that will show the reciprocal vs one-way inbound links?
Competitive Research | | FastCashOnlineInc0