Why is this website outranking the others?

[jasonwdexter]

I'm a geek when it comes to any search results I'm looking for and one that I did brought up the following results:

1. www.ukpaintball.co.uk/paintball_nottingham.asp
2. www.skirmishpaintballnottingham.co.uk

The UK paintball one ranking first, the skirmish one ranking second. Now, I will admit that I look after the Skirmish one (purely design tweaks and CRO, as opposed to ranking) but I can't work out why it's being outranked?

Any insight would be mega cheers!

[LynnPatchett]

Hi Jason,

At first glance I would say a big part would be the number of external links and the domain authority. The first site has some links from quite a few major news sources in regards an incident where a woman's breast implant got 'blown out'(!!). Bbc, la times, cbs, nbc, huffington post, wow!

Now, i'm not suggesting you try to organise a similar event , but man, those links are pretty powerful and even though the event could be considered a negative one from one side of the equation those links are probably giving a good overall authority boost to the site.

[Asher]

Hey Jason,

Great Name :-). Your PR rank is lower and than the root url of ukpaintball.co.uk. You are a PR 1 and they are a PR 4.  Also, the domain looks to be older than yours and thereby has more authority.  I hope that helps, this was just after a cursory glance and what you were asking.

[jasonwdexter]

Yeah, they have some insane links. But they don't rank top for Paintball Bristol. Surely EMDs can't be that strong and push above them in the rankings?

A wise man one told me that there is no such thing as negative press in SEO. Last month, they were 5th, I seem to remember.

[LynnPatchett]

Well, they rank number 2 for Bristol from where I am, and while the #1 spot is an EMD, it is also looks like a local Bristol company and has got some links from Bristol based business directories, so all in all not that bad of a call from google to rank it #1 and number 2 is a pretty good spot also!

If they have been on the move since last month than this might tie in with the recent google algo updates and I have certainly seen what I think seems to indicate an even further bias towards authority/brand sites which with those news links this site might be benefiting from.

[SVmedia]

Hi Jason,

Check out how the skirmish site's incoming links are anchored.  The majority use the exact keyword "paintball nottingham"....  A natural link profile most of the time that means your anchors are your brand name or actual URL - with just a dash of the keyword related phrases.

and do you know about these? - http://www.skirmish-site.co.uk/venue/paintball-chesterfield/wsdindex.html

Hope that helps

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Jason,

Good discussion going on here. Thought I would add, I like using 51 Blocks' free Local Competitive Analysis tool when researching issues like this one. Here's the link: http://www.51blocks.com/online-marketing-tools/free-local-analysis/

Hope this helps!

[Christy-Correll]

Hi Jason, you've received a number of excellent responses. Did any of them help?