Can't figure out how my competitor has so many links

[theChris]

I suspect something possibly black-hat is going on with the amount of inbound links for www.pacificlifestylehomes.com   ( http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.pacificlifestylehomes.com ) mainly because they have such a large volume of links (for my industry) with their exact targeted keyword.

Can anyone help clear this up for me?

[RyanKent]

Hi Christopher.

When using OSE, I always set the top filters as follows:

Show followed + 301 - I only wish to see followed links which help DA/PA

links from only external - internal links are not helpful for my backlink analysis

pages to pages on this root domain - usually I wish to see all links to the domain and not just links to the given page

and group by domain - usually I am trying to learn which domains are providing the link and do not need to see each individual link

Before applying the filter I notice the site has 4646 total links from 51 domains. That's an average of close to 100 links per domain. With a high link average it's common to find some site-wide links. Site-wide links muddy the waters a bit and make it difficult to see the links which offer value. You can work hard, obtain 50 links from 50 domains and then obtain one site-wide footer link from a 10k page forum site which has little value, but then your backlink profile will show 10,050 links from 51 domains.

With the above in mind I apply the filter and see this site only has links from 44 domains. That is not a large number. When I scanned the link I noticed a michigan.gov link which stood out, but when I tried to follow the link it is to a file. The Linkscape index upon which OSE is dependent had an issue with the last crawl of the web and some files showed links which are not actually there. This issue should be resolved during the next crawl.

Many of the remaining links appear to be from a network of classified ad sites. When I check the first OSE link www.vancouverclassifieds.com/ it shows the "Custom New Homes Portland" anchor text at the top of the page. As you can see from the backlink profile, this link appears on many of the other network classified sites. The site presents itself as a free classified ad site and I could not find anywhere which mentioned how to pay or otherwise receive an anchor link in that location. Either I missed something, or this site owner has a friend or otherwise paid someone to receive a link in that location.

As I look at other sites, the links seem to be paid links that are not otherwise obvious. They are links from sidebars such as found at http://oregoncatalyst.com/. There is no apparent reason for the link.

You could try contacting the sites and ask what you can do to earn a link like your competitor. The answer you receive may offer further clarity.

[theChris]

Ryan,

Thanks so much for this breakdown - those settings in OSE make sense and are very helpful.  I wish I didn't have to buy links like they apparently did, but in the housing industry the bulk of organic links companies get are either branded to the company's name or they just say 'website'.  Why can't everyone understand SEO??

[RyanKent]

Spend your time and money focused on generated incredible CONTENT not buying links.

You or someone who works for the site can be reaching out to become a solid member of the housing community. Newspapers, government agencies, builders and others all write about housing. Find out what the current hot topics are and write about them.

Don't write the standard "I need a 500 word SEO article" type of internet junk. Forget about your company. Write the best, most sincerely helpful article you can think of regarding a housing topic. "The Importance of Researching Local Schools Before Buying a Home", "Building a Truly Green Home", "Home Improvements that Add Value", etc.

Write an article that talks about something people will WANT to link to. Talk about something YOU would link to if you even found it on a competitor's site. The value of your competitors links were not that strong. I don't recall any links from DA 7x sites. You can earn those kind of links with a high quality article.