Why is a website with no backlinks beating me?

[HeadStud]

In Sydney we have an import car dealership and even though it does not show any backlinks to it:

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.edwardlees.com.au%2F

(make sure to search on Google.com.au for any relevant keywords I mention)

However this website is ranking at the top for many competitive keywords, for example:

'japanese imports'

It is dominating. Our website has many backlinks:

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.sportsautogroup.com.au

But no keyword rankings. I understand we need to fix up our on Page SEO, but how does our EdwardLee's rank top with no backlinks?? Or is the tool just missing data?

[stubby]

Try viewing both sites in a search engine spider simulator.  I like the Foxy SEO spider simulator for FireFox.

When you use a spider emulator:

Their site actually says something about Japanese Imports a few times in the text, and then lists several (mostly Japanese) cars for sale.  And their menu lists other Japanese models.

Your site looks like a bunch of links with hardly any text, and many of the links are for non-Japanese cars.

Edit:

Plus, (don't take this harshly, I only looked at a few), but your backlinks are spammy.  They appear to be from very spammy sites.  Would you believe anyone would go read one of those sites and find value from your links?  My guess is that they these links are at best providing zero value to you, and possibly hurting you.

Good Luck!

[JohnW-UK]

Unfortunately Open Site Explorer is not perfect!!! The internet is big and it cannot index EVER site.

Have you tried using other backchecker tools? (sorry I can't think of any at the moment I will edit later)

They do have backlinks going to them:- i.e. A quick search and I found:-

http://www.sitefinder.com.au/?q=edward+lees&w=&x=0&y=0

[charles1]

Open Site explorer only get's updated every month or so, although it doesn't  crawl the entire internet so it could take up to 1-3 months for you to see what your competitors backlinks are.  They do have backlinks.

In terms of your website, it looks like you have received a Google Penalty, as I've searched your actual name: "sportsautogroup" and you don't even show up.

You need to remove the spammy blog links and other fake links. Such as this one... this clearly a spammy blog network link - http://www.christmastreemountain.com/

Then submit for reconsideration - I could contact an SEO professional before doing this. There is plenty of great people on SEOmoz forum that can help.

[HeadStud]

Hi FreshFireOne,

I checked your link, however I don't see where I have to go to find backlinks? the link just says the website name.

[HeadStud]

Hi charles1,

How can I remove spammy blog links. Once they're created it must be a headache to remove, not to mention there could be mroe than one person building backlinks to this site (at the moment they don't have a fully clear SEO strategy).

Regards

[JohnW-UK]

Right sorted....

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.japaneseautocentre.com.au

They have a 301 redirect from www.japaneseautocentre.com.au TO www.edwardless.com.au

Hope this helps!

Also go and read my thoughts on Link Building Strategies on this other question...

http://www.seomoz.org/q/free-classified-backlinks-google 

[JohnW-UK]

Out of interest how did you find out a Google Penalty or is this just a guess best on the poor quality links?

[HeadStud]

Hi FreshFireOne,

The reason I think he has a point is because if I search for the brand name on Google it doesn't even come up with their site, but instead with some random site that doesn't even have any info on it.

Regards

[charles1]

Hi Kosta,

Sadly the only way I know is to contact each website that looks spammy and ask for them to remove the link.  Sometimes getting removal isn't possible.

If it's a blog network, find out who owns the blog network and ask them to remove all the links.  It looks like they have used an SEO firm to get these back links? Often blackhat SEO firms have their own blog networks, so you could get them to remove all of them, if your lucky.

The other option is to just start building quality links, and just wait out the penalty. If you get enough quality links Google will see the website is trust worthy and ignore the spam.

The hard part is getting quality links. Start with high quality directories, and then looks at the business supplier to see if you can get quality links from suppliers in exchange for a testimonies.

Then I would move on to guessed blogging on relevant topics.  Cars should be an easy topic to find plenty of quality blogs. Contact them with a great article or idea, in exchange for a link.