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Competitors outranking with spam backlinks

by MitchHoward
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi all,

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm not experienced in off-page SEO.

I'm writing 1-2 pieces of content each week. These pieces are 1,500-4,000 words long, and written by yours truly. No spun content. Each piece has 20-30 images at minimum. And a couple weeks after it's indexed, I'm making a professionally produced Youtube video and embedding it in the page.

I've been doing this for 2 months so it's still pretty fresh. But the domain is not. It's several years old.

I'm practicing proper on-page metrics as suggested by Yoast SEO plugin. I always make sure I get the gree smiley face ... lol

Assuming most of you know who Niel Patel is, my content is very similar.


I'm trying to rank for my service in several cities aside from my local seo (doing well there)

But I'm noticing many of the top ranking competitors have terrible content, and spam backlinks. Their DA and PA are much higher than mine and despite my hard work on my content, google doesn't seem to care.

What are my options?

My first thought was to just keep going, keep posting great content. But I'm concerned that I also need backlinks since they have several hundred and I only have a few.

What would you do?
#backlinks #competitors #outranking #spam
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by MitchHoward View Post

    What would you do?
    The short answer.. get backlinks. the slightly longer answer since you are saying your local SEO is looking good.. are you getting citations that include active links AKA backlinks? this would be the direction I would start looking at.
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  • Profile picture of the author Andrii Ozemko
    Do not stop working on your website. Continue writing high quality content and spent time on getting backlinks. You need to get know how many links your competitors have and get similar quantity. And do not expect to have "quick win". It is hard work.
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    • Profile picture of the author Capik27
      Hey, I agree with you, it's important to do your best and not give up. However advice which I can give on the topic this find the backlink list, which will help promote a site on different forums either very find and try raising popularity compiling own list for SEO optimization. By the way, in my experience I have been using GSA verified list for several years which helps me to save a lot of time on promoting my own interests.
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  • Profile picture of the author raquelmedina
    Two months is a short time to draw conclusions.

    In your case, I would continue to create good content constantly, study what competition does to make better quality content than them, buy some quality backlinks on related sites and have a lot of patience.
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  • Profile picture of the author sendizo
    out rank them back and use their weapon
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  • Profile picture of the author Stephen Paul
    You should keep writing with high-quality content and try to get good backlinks. Analyze your top competitor backlinks sites and make backlinks on high DA & PA websites. It takes time so keep patience.
    Also, make sure that your content has good keyword stuffing.
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  • Profile picture of the author cbpayne
    How do you know they are outranking you becasue of the spam backlinks?
    Google could be ignoring their spam backlinks and they outrank you for other reasons.
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  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    I would stop listening to Neil Patel or modeling anything after him. He is a lousy SEO.

    You can also ignore most of Yoast's recommendations.

    20-30 images in a post is a lot. Are you sure you need that many? I bet your pages load slow because of them. And I am guessing you have a subscription to a stock image site to get these from or are you creating the images yourself? If you are posting twice a week, that is 160-240 or so images per month. I hope you are not just pulling them off of Google Images because you are going to end up in a copyright lawsuit eventually if you are.

    Two things that stick out to me about your post. First, just posting new content is not going to get you ranking. This is one of the reasons I tell people to ignore Neil and his "if you build it, they will come" bullshit.

    Second, you are doing absolutely nothing to attract or create good links. Links are the #1 ranking factor in Google. Not only are they the #1 ranking factor, but they are #1 by a wide, wide margin.

    So you are missing out on the most important component to ranking. That's why you are losing.
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  • Profile picture of the author KylieSweet
    Spam backlinks is not reason why the comeptitors are outranking your website it is because they are performing well in the web by providing the needed information to the target audience.
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    • Profile picture of the author Blakers1
      Originally Posted by KylieSweet View Post

      Spam backlinks is not reason why the comeptitors are outranking your website it is because they are performing well in the web by providing the needed information to the target audience.
      I have to disagree with this on a lot of levels because we have a local competitor doing the same thing with dozens of PBN links pointed to his agency website and he's been at the top of organic for 'SEO agency [CITY]' for about a year now.

      It's sort of funny cause he didn't even bother to spend a little more on a network that at least blocks crawlers. So, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how he did it last year and I've been watching his rank since then.

      Spam absolutely still works...until it doesn't. That's a risk some choose to take, and Google will eventually catch up with them.
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        Just because it is PBN doesn't mean it is spam. Did you look at the sites? What are they like?


        Also, maybe they are ranking despite those PBN links.

        Originally Posted by Blakers1 View Post

        I have to disagree with this on a lot of levels because we have a local competitor doing the same thing with dozens of PBN links pointed to his agency website and he's been at the top of organic for 'SEO agency [CITY]' for about a year now.

        It's sort of funny cause he didn't even bother to spend a little more on a network that at least blocks crawlers. So, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how he did it last year and I've been watching his rank since then.

        Spam absolutely still works...until it doesn't. That's a risk some choose to take, and Google will eventually catch up with them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ecrease
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    • Profile picture of the author DABK
      I am going to have to disagree with you, on account that I have outranked pages with DA and PA in the 70's while mine were between 4 and 13.

      For good keywords.

      With competitive keywords, without baclinks you go nowhere, regardless of PA and DA (because those are pointless metrics).

      Originally Posted by Ecrease View Post

      Hey Mitch, I agree with everyone here in that if their DA and PA are a lot higher, there are unfortunately fewer things you can do to help yourself other than acquiring your own backlinks. Everyone has this issue as it's the hardest aspect of SEO.

      [Text removed by moderator]
      Cheers,

      James
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  • Profile picture of the author codyhay
    Well, try doing Off-page SEO for the local reach. And don't worry sooner or later Google Algorithm will hit your competitor(creating spam & irrelevant links)
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    • Profile picture of the author MrRobinson
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
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  • Profile picture of the author codyhay
    Then create some backlinks quality wise. As creating spammy backlinks will put you in their shoes.
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  • Profile picture of the author innateseo
    Back-links are based of the quality total. For instance, they may have a lot of spam links, but they probably have several decent, high value links.

    Find out which ones those are, and see if you can get a link on the same domain!
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  • Profile picture of the author M99win
    You need to create Backlink targeting your keyword with Anchor
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