domain authority and rankings?

[jl255]

Need some urgent advice here.

I'm about to purchase a site that sits in #1 position for its keywords right now. But it only got there about 1mth ago. The site is only about 6mths old with apparently lots of link building. I check the domain authority and its only 37/100 with the #2, #3 sites having domain authority of 57 and 82 respectively.

This site has like 800+ backlinks. While the #2 and #3 sites have 20,000+ backlinks.

Does it mean that it is VERY LIKELY that this site is going to drop its #1 position soon? I know that things don't look good but I just want to know how certain is this site going to drop? If I aggressively add new good content and link building after the sale is complete, is there a good chance I can continue retaining #1?

Tks!

[maxrezn]

You really should examine the competition's backlinks to see what the anchor text is and if it relates to your keyword. If possible, delay the sale a little bit just to be on the safe side.

[bermuda]

It's actually complex to predict what is going to happen but I would look at some tools which offer scores on domains based on their links status with doubt because only Google knows why such a site is currently at the first spot and the quality of links which it has plus contents appearing on its pages can be the reasons behind its great web position right now. Sometimes adding too many links to the sites might even damage their ranks so try to be careful in this respect.

Since the site is currently at the top, so it might even remain so without doing further actions because many times doing unwanted link building or content addition may completely make everything complex, shaking the fixed ranks also. The other competitors that are having more links, might not seem that strong due to various reasons. Sometimes even one link can do better than hundreds of low quality links which might be gained and contents too are always important.

[jl255]

tks for the inputs.

do you guys often see sites sitting on #1 getting pushed off easily? how abt sites that just got to #1?

[ozsubasi]

Originally Posted by jl255

I check the domain authority and its only 37/100 with the #2, #3 sites having domain authority of 57 and 82 respectively.

Domain authority as measured by SEOmoz? I agree with Bermuda, Google has its own database and its own reasons for ranking, and although SEOmoz can be a useful guide it cannot by any means be considered definitive in terms of Google.