Can You Knock Out the Big Dogs With Backlinks?

[Shannon Tani]

I'm checking out the competition for Google's top spots for some of my keywords. In looking at some of the most highly searched for terms, some of the top 10 results are Big Dogs -- sites like WebMD, Wikipedia, Bankrate, etc.

However, some of them have few or no backlinks to the page that's ranking. Would I be able to outrank them with an excellent article and a number of backlinks? Or does their authority outrank my backlinks?

Love,
Shannon

[hobsdv]

Getting yourself some high quality backlinks with an established website would help you.

[Andyhenry]

You can definitely outrank them.

The internet is about web pages - if you get your page to be more appropriate and have more high quality links - you win. Obviously there are a lot of other factors which swing the balance (like age of page, how often the content gets updated etc..) but like you already know - they're ranking mainly because of the authority and links to their main domain, so you can beat a specific page based on how that page is getting its weight.

Andy

[hobsdv]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

You can definitely outrank them.

The internet is about web pages - if you get your page to be more appropriate and have more high quality links - you win. Obviously there are a lot of other factors which swing the balance (like age of page, how often the content gets updated etc..) but like you already know - they're ranking mainly because of the authority and links to their main domain, so you can beat a specific page based on how that page is getting its weight.

Andy

good points i missed them, Doamin Age and content are another big factor

[YoungMoulah]

Definately agree with the rest of the posts here.

One more important point:

Though you can, Depending on the keyword it will take a long time to do so. So, good luck.

I also have my own eye on a similar task at the mo, i'm excited!

[Marian Berghes]

I usually tend to not consider those sites as actual competition because they rank for a billion keywords.

I mostly try and focus on the other websites and just overlook wikipedia, ehow or a subdomain from about.com

You can outrank them for sure, I just don't focus on that too much.

[Truffle]

good and relevant links to the page will help you a lot. But what Andyhenry said must be taken into consideration as well

greetz,
jobic

ps: try and get a link from those big dogs :-)

[eshus]

Certainly you can outrank them with your site provided it should be more attractive, informative and quality than them. You need to do lot of hard work. But certainly is not possible with single outstanding excellent article and a few number of backlinks.

[Jon Steel]

5 factors will drive your specialized site above their authority site.

1) Backlinks - most important
2) Meta Content - primarily the meta-title and meta-description. Ensure your key words are used in them both
3) Keyword density in your webpage
4) URL - should contain keyword/phrase
5) Age of URL

However, 1-3 of the above will take you HIGH if you don't have #4. And #5 will obviously come with time.

js

[4morereferrals]

Great stuff ... Im competing with other competitors who are knocking out some pretty big dogs for some hard terms.

Do quality On Page Optimization - then get after the OFF PAGE ... ASAP.

backlinks are whats doing it for a couple of my sites now ...

Originally Posted by Jon Steel

5 factors will drive your specialized site above their authority site.

1) Backlinks - most important
2) Meta Content - primarily the meta-title and meta-description. Ensure your key words are used in them both
3) Keyword density in your webpage
4) URL - should contain keyword/phrase
5) Age of URL

However, 1-3 of the above will take you HIGH if you don't have #4. And #5 will obviously come with time.

js

[Shannon Tani]

Thanks for all the replies! This is encouraging me to go beyond the low-hanging fruit.

Love,
Shannon