Garbage, low quality sites are overtaking my 1st place Google rankings

you might have stopped building some links or you may have not updated anu fresh content in a while?

Domain Authority has nothing to do with rankings, especially when talking about individual posts on sites.

People put too much emphasis on "quality content" or "quality sites" when looking at rankings. The thing Google cares the most about is the quantity of quality links pointing at a page. My guess would be they are beating you with better links.

Without seeing the sites, nobody is going to be able to provide you an answer.

Probably G. is tossing sites to let others to have some fun claiming to be on page #1

What is happening to you is not insulated case
Our directory would come up on page #1 for at least 20 keywords phrases and in place #1
for a half dozen but now a half dozen at the best even though nothing has been charged.

Even keying 'amray' have in in #4 whereas for the last 12 years it was in #1 which says that G.
is frucking around with SEO and Optimizers making sure everybody knows who is the Boss.

You have more than likely lost links. Domain authority is hardly reliable all the time but a drop would indicate that their system saw a loss of links.

You should be happy that they are only just now catching up to you. If you have been making good money from ranking you will have a target on your rank. It could be something else but its about a 90% chance they are just beating you in link building.

You think you have fantastic sites because you are dressing up your affiliate (and "other") sites?

I call that putting lipstick on a pig.

Be glad that YOU stuck around for so long....

Why does everyone posting seem to think that their site is just the $#!TZ and it just deserves to be #1?

Of course, somewhere some sap is celebrating, finally making it to the top....maybe coming here to do a WSO.

Paul

Forget domain authority, it's not a sign of authority, it's a sales gimmick.

Followed backlinks is what you need to be looking at.




Only If they're followed links.

its easy techniques.
they are doing some special features and increasing their authority.

Am I the only one that sees the irony of this paragraph?

It seems that the OP is trash talking his own "style and technique" as "trashy", and "low quality". Or, did I somehow misread that statement?

Is the only difference in quality of content based on whether it was published by "you", or a "competitor"?

Of course not, yet we so often speak as if it is.

Seems to me that you are refusing to be objective about the value of your own content as compared to your competitors. Try to set your personal feelings aside and get an objective non-biased perspective of your content. You might find it lacking in the same way that your competitor's content is lacking.

In my experience, I have noticed that most publishers/webmaster's cannot look at their own content objectively. That they judge it to be better than it is simply because it meets their own personal preferences. It doesn't matter how you feel about your own content, what matters is how Google users view and react to your content. That is what Google measures and relies upon for data used to rank your web page in their index.

Of course there is a lot more to the SERP ranking algorithm than backlinks, though backlinks do play a major role. In the very top positions "user behavior" plays a significant role in how you rank. You may want to perform some usability testing to find and fix weaknesses in your content, while also boosting the promotion of your page.

Don't rely on your own personal bias to evaluate your content quality and usefulness. Focus more on usefulness than Quality. Utility value is several magnitudes greater in ranking influence than "quality".

Focus your attention on the 3 pillars of SEO:
1. Relevancy
2. Utility
3. Promotion

The second order of factors affecting your rank are less important than those primary pillars. Prioritize your optimization efforts where it will count the most.

You will often find top ranked content to be "trashy", or of "low quality", yet somehow still useful for the searchers on Google. Google cares far more about relevance and utility value than they do about subjective opinions on aesthetic qualities of content.

Making sure that your content is of the right "type" for the search query, and most useful for Google users helps your ranking far more than subjective aesthetics based on your own personal preferences.

It's only when you get the content right that your promotional activities really pay off. Don't try to put the cart be fore the horse. Promoting content with low utility value is like pushing on a string. You need both high utility value and promotional effort to rank in highly competitive search terms. Create relevant and useful content, then promote the hell out of it.

HTH,

Don Burk

Your clearly an authority in your niche, try taking a look at these sites back-link profiles, because that is most definatley why they are out ranking you.

Also if you have not posted in a while and they are updated more often then it could be a mixture of both.

Bertie

Google these days wants people and companies to refresh websites quite frequently as they like juicy content which is prob what the others are doing, maybe you should join in and refresh your content. I like to refresh however little and move around the content and add optimised media files still command a page #1 or #2 for some strong keywords, hope it helps yeah.

I know blackhat. He's probably just using a well hidden pbn. Or a GSA churn and burn, they work better than most people think still.