Ok, I'm really trying to wrap my self around all this SEO stuff.  Right when I think I'm grasping it, I come across something like this.

When running a keyword difficulty report for the term "essay editing", the top two results are:

www.papercheck.com/essay-editing.html

www.gradesaver.com/essay-editing/

The first result has a PA of 37, 2 linking page domains, DA of 48, and 197 root linking domains.

The second has a PA of 65, 32 linking page domains, DA of 68, and 2,572 root linking domains.

What the heck is going on here!?!?  I can't understand it.  I checked anchor text and that doesn't appear to be it.  The only thing I can find is that the papercheck has a link from a site (marketwire) with a DA of 90 while the #2 guy's highest linking domain has a DA of 60.

However, I have a really hard time wrapping my head around this considering the total linking domain stats compared to one another.

Any insight is much appreciate... this is frustrating trying to grasp these situations!

Thanks!