Can I outrank about.com?

[Challe77]

Can I outrank about.com com for certain keywords, or should I just give up
if I see that its number 1 for my long tail keyword.

I checked about.com´s link for that particular page and they didn´t have that many particular links for that particular page. My article is pretty close to the first position even though I don´t have that many links, so should I try to outrank it?

Since about.com deals with all kinds of things I think It shouldn´t be that hard to beat.
If the site was targeted only to my niche I can see that It could be a huge problem to outrank it.

Is my reasoning accurate?

Sincerely
Karl

[stevenh512]

About.com carries a pagerank of 8, over 5,000 backlinks (according to Google) and has more pages than I care to count that Google and many other search engines consider "relevant content" on just about every subject known to man. I'm guessing you're going to have a hard time outranking them.

[AndyBlackSEO]

Check the back links for that particular page. It may be less than you think. There will be loads more than 5,000 links to that domain, but not necessarily that page. Run some tests and see what it's true competition is like.

Your page would have to have better, or maybe more relevant content for your longtail. The main strength of sites such as Ask.com is the trust factor. It will have a lot of trust with Google.

Why don't you spend a little time to see how you fair. If you can't get in the top 10 easy, then give up. If you can get to number 2 or 3 then all is not lost and you may still get traffic.

[Davion Wong]

Hard to say, while they may be an authority site, if the long tail keyword does not have a high level of competition and hardly any backlink, you still stand a chance to outrank them.

But of course, you need to have quality content as well as a good number of backlinks across different PR and C-Class ips.

[TheMagicShow]

I wouldn't bother, about is an authority site that has thousands of pages filled with quality content They are an aged domain as well -- and have insane amount of backlinks.

About ranks well for both good longtail keywords ,and some good non longtail keywords. Those guys, and wikipedia are hard to out-do when it comes to content.

[Michael Silvester]

Hi Mate,

Why try to beat them when you can just
appear alongside them on the same page?

Take Care,

Michael Silvester

[GreatBiz]

I beg to differ. Google ranks webpages, and not websites. It really depends on the keyword competitiveness.

If the page from about.com is new and does not have many inbound links, there is still a chance. If it is not competitive, with appropriate number of backlinks from a wide spread of authority sites and smaller sites, it is still possible to take on a giant like About.com.

[Alp Bozkurt]

The link juice that comes from main domain About.com will nail any article to number#1 spot if the page applies SEO 101, for most long tail keywords.

If your article is on EZA you can outrank about's article with some social bookmark back links. But if it's on your own low-PR domain, good luck.

[udskiii]

1> Find out which pages point to that EXACT about.com page
2> try to get links from all those sites
3> get more links
4> Wait patiently for a few days/weeks

[Oland]

Another thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: When you go looking for links to your page, make sure that the link is properly anchored. Don't just point a bunch of links to your page with no anchor text.

Let's say that you want to rank for "weight loss tips". Make your links look like this:
<a href="http://www.mysite.com/myweightlosspage.html">weight loss tips></a>

I would also make sure to change the anchor text once in a while when creating new backlinks so that it does not appear spammy.

HTH.

[MichaelHiles]

Contact the topic editor at About and get them to list your site in their section. Don't forget that About outsources topic categories to common folks who get a revshare of CPC ad revenue that performs in their section.

[Chris Kent]

I agree with Michael. Don't concern yourself with about.com

They have pages on a variety of niches and you can easily dominate one of them if you want to. This is what I do with several health content sites.

[Challe77]

Ok, thanks all, I´ll put on my boxing gloves and head into the fight then :P

[kevin campbelle]

Yes it can be done. I did it with a niche site and for both 2 and 3 keyword phrases. I also got my website on the actual about.com page that I was competing with and this gave me even more traffic.

Most times I would rank higher, then about.com would outrank me sometimes, then my site would drop for a while, then their site for a while but I would always have some sort of traffic for those keywords as I cannot recall any instances where my site and about.com dropped at the same time.

Kevin.

[x3xsolxdierx3x]

Ah....and this is where utilizing a site you don't actually own (as many here have been adamantly opposed to) can come in real handy. With your own site it may be difficult, but with a Squidoo or HubPages article, you may stand a lot better chance of dethroning an authority site like about.com. Use an authority site to beat an authority site

[TwinDragon]

Great subject. I was thinking the same thing and am glad you asked.