Analyzing cometitiors back links

[JacobBushnell]

Hello, I have been working on getting links to my site www.healthyjava.com by offering bloggers free products to hand out in drawings and contest. We have had some small success with that but when I was analyzing one of my competitors I found that there strongest link is www.promotemydomain.com. It looks like some sort of free link index, and has NOTHING to do with our relevant product. Yet he out ranks me by a LOT.

What gives here? I was under the impression that google does not value free link indexes much.

Should I pursue getting in that index too? Or will he someday get penalized by being in there?

On the flip side, what if a competitor places MY link in there.. Could I get penalized even though I didn't do it?

Thank you,

Jacob Bushnell

[RobertFisher]

Jacob,

This is a question any of us ask from time to time. Unfortunately, and I think Google says it too, they are not at a place where everything is "caught" even with all the changes in the algorithm in the last year or two. So,when looking at a competitor, it is easy to get caught up in the, "They have these bogus links and are outranking me." game.
I would suggest you not get caught up in that worry as you will be focusing on the wrong thing. I don't think if you want to go get that link, given you are not in the most competitive space on the web and assuming your site/pages are not repositories of Chinese Gambling Ginseng Sexual Enhancement links by the gross, you should be fine. I doubt that it will change anything drastically though for the positive.

I would focus on the other aspects of SEO and on continuing to build your links to your sites. This will pay off much better. By focusing on quality on page SEO and really focusing on it you beat out 90% of your competitors. By focusing as much as possible in local where you can, you beat out at least 75% of your competitors. By having ripping good meta descriptions that make people want to visit you get more conversions. If you consider that links are 20% of SEO +/- then there is roughly 80% left. By focusing on the 20 you are ceding too much ground to the guy who takes the easy way out. If you want to bust his chops, get the rest of it so tight he cries and continue to build quality back links; in a few months see who wins.

Best

[JacobBushnell]

Thanks for that advice!

Jacob