Interesting link to a competitors site

[TRICORSystems]

I recently found a very interesting link to two of my competitors sites. The companies are number 2 and 3 in Google for my targeted keywords (for some reason Wikipedia is number 1) and are both linked from the home page of this site.

I don't want to leave a link for linkers site because I don't want them to be able to see that I'm snooping on them but, here is the scenerio:

The site that they are linked from is a .org site. It is basically our targeted keywords in a .org. Something like bluewidgets.org. At the very bottom of the home page are some tabs, you click the first tab and it opens about 20 new tabs, when you click any of those 20 tabs it displays some text at the bottom of the page. This text is of no value to visitors, it  is obvious to me what is happening here. Both companies are linked with targeted keywords in the anchor and title text.

I'm wondering if I should also pursue a link from this page. I know there is value in a .org link but this site seems to be built to link to those two sites.

Anybody else ever run into anything like I'm describing. Should I post a link to this site?

[SimonCullum]

Hi Brandon

If you haven't seen this already, an awesome video here on SEOmoz entitled "I'm Being Outranked by a Spammer - Whiteboard Friday" is well worth a view, it was posted last Friday and Rand has some really insightful and valuable information to share.

I would suspect, though obviously can't know, that the links from this .org site to your competitors will not be the reason they are ranking so highly. If those links are being counted, it will be a small part of those rankings, takes a lot more than 1 good link usually.

Just because it's from a .org doesn't mean that the links carry any weight, it sounds like a site with little value from the way you've described it, I'd suggest focusing on creating and distributing some valuable content rather than chasing the links of competitors.  Link Analysis of competitors is of course important, just don't worry too much about individual links, especially if they are questionable such as in this case.  With some great content, you can attract some valuable links of your own that your competitors may not have.

I hope that helps,

Regards

Simon

[TRICORSystems]

I don't think a better link will be possible from this site. It's very strange, all of the content describes bluewidgets.org as if it's a company offering services. But there is not company name anywhere, not even on the about us page.

I just filled out their contact form to try to obtain more company information.

[ResslerMotors]

Personally, I would pursue a better link from them, right within the content.  Don't just get even, get ahead

As for the .Org being better:

From what I've read in a couple blogs, I've never tested this, it's not that a .Org is just better.  What makes .edu's and .Org more desirable is that they are typically more authoritative sites.  A typical university has a 80+ Domain Authority, where a .Com will vary greatly.