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Some resources to help formulate a competitive backlink analysis. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/competitive-link-analysis-tips-whiteboard-friday http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-inside-look-at-competitors-backlinks-with-open-site-explorer If you find that your competitor is building spam links, you may find that they drop back down in the SERPs fairly quickly. On the other hand, you may find in your competitive analysis that they're actually brilliant marketers who have found an intelligent link building strategy that you're not using. This is where you have to put your detective hat on and ask "exactly how did they get this link?" If it's a good link, then you might want to replicate the strategy.