When a competitor site jumps from 4000 to 10000 links in 2 months are they most likely spamming?

[kadesmith]

One of my competitors site's jumped from about 4000 links 2 months ago to about 10000 links today.  That seems REALLY unnatural to me given the market (roofing products), but if it isn't what are they doing?  My gut tells me it's fake, but I'm just curious what some of your takes on it are.

[SEOLocal92]

well yes and no , it can be that they are but it can also be that they getting 2000 links from the same site that have many pages, so look at c class also

hope that help

Mike

[AgentsofValue]

My thoughts:

Maybe one of their campaign, like videos, went viral. For that amount of new links, it has to be a link or content or video that is shared, syndicated or reposted, a lot of times.

My other thought would be using automated software and buying links. (Though I'm not saying your competitor did those).

You could check your competitors' site using tools like Raven Tools or Website Analyzer or Link Detective, to see where those new links are coming from. That will help you figure out if those are "natural" links.

[Marcus_Miller]

Spamming, or doing something really awesome - a quick look at the links themselves and the ratio of new links to linking sites should give you an idea. If it's 2000 solid links from 2000 sites then they have knocked it out of the park else if it's more like 2000 anchored links from 20 sites then they have likely just bought themselves a spell in the penguin cage.