Link spam outranking me... how and why?!

[SamCUK]

Can anyone tell me why compertors doing this kind of spam is outranking me?

http://boatingblog.discoverboating.com/dfennewald/archive/2009/08/31/discover-boating-becomes-a-chicago-sun-times-headliner.aspx

One of my main competitors also has links in the footer of:

http://www.cricketlinks.net/default.asp?country=SA

This one competitor has nearly 2000 links coming from just 8 root domains. I've been avoiding this stuff like the plague but sometimes it makes you wonder...

[Devanur-Rafi]

Sam, my friend...please never think along those lines like how and why someone doing spam or blackhat tactics and still be able to rank high in search engines. Even if someone from Google guarantees me in written that there won't be anything happening to my site  if I go the blackhat way, I will still stay away from those as I am here to stay forever and I never ever think of doing anything that the search engines frown upon. Please don't bother about those who do blackhat and still get away with it. Thinking along those lines itself is incorrect. Let them do and they will repent one fine day. Today, there are thousands if not lakhs of sites that do not follow the guidelines of search engines and are still ranking high. Just because they are doing good despite their shady tactics, we should not follow them or even bother or worry about them. Its obvious that they are not doing the right thing and we just have to laugh when we see them. They won't last long. Here is the deal, if you want to be here forever, then stay clean.Only quality content and quality links can secure you a lasting high rank in Google.

However, you can report those spammy websites here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreportform?hl=en

and here:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport

You need to login to your Google webmaster tools account to be able to access the URLs above.

So don't worry my friend. I know how does it feel when you see worthless sites ranking high in search engines.

We are here to play a fair game and not to manipulate the search results to rank high in search engines and please do not even think about those who try to out-smart the search engines and their algorithms. Wish you all the very best.

Regards,

Devanur Rafi