Why is this guy at the top p1

[Cocoonfxmedia]

Hi

I am baffled our competitor is position 1 on google and another spam site is position 2 for this position 4. Both site hit every no no for Google.

For example our site no duplicate content and no duplicate pages.  However our competitor 21% of all content is duplicated and 51% of the title tags are duplicated.

I am seeing this more and more and I am wondering has google screwed up as it seems to be that if you bend the rules you get to the top of google.

[Christy-Correll]

Hi there! This is a good question. However, to offer any insight into what may be going on in this particular situation, we need more information. Would you mind sharing the keyword you are targeting, as well as the domains of the top-ranking sites? Thanks!

Christy

[Cocoonfxmedia]

Sure  [web design lichfield]

arcimedia.co.uk

lichfieldwebdesign.co.uk  <== this one black list on Spamhaus and other spam lists.

However our company and another competitor who I know is active on SEO we're both page 2.

[calindaniel]

As Christy mentioned, it would be helpful if you could provide the keywords and URL.

Speaking in general terms, websites with spammy links can in many niche still outrank domains with natural backlink profiles. Anchor text and a website's authority are still extremely important, in my opinion.

[calindaniel]

Hi Cocoonfxmedia,

Thanks for sharing the websites.

Yes, it appears you're dealing with a website that's walking a very fine line (arcimedia.co.uk) at the moment. One look at its backlink profile and you can see how over optimized the website's anchor text truly is.

Unfortunately, this isn't uncommon, especially in the digital marketing/web design niche. This proves that Google's algorithm isn't perfect at identifying spammy backlink profiles. It may also be the case that their website has a few authoritative links point to it or another website that 301 redirects to it.

The only real solution is to continue to fight the good fight. I wouldn't be surprised to see this website pop out of the search results at some point in the future due to an algo update or manual penalty. It's a hard pill to swallow, but I would continue to focus on your local SEO efforts (building quality citations, local links, engaging local content, acquiring reviews, etc). It isn't worth jeopardizing the long-term potential of a website, in my opinion, to receive short term rankings.

Best of luck,