Competitor links on unmaintained pages
-
hey all, this is my first posting...
I have a webpage that is a great resource (ranked 3rd for my keyword) , and unarguably better than the site that is taking the first 2 places.
Because my page is a much more useful resource for the same thing I have been looking at who is linking to them and asking them to take a look at mine in the hope that they will replace their link with my more up to date page.
The problem is a LOT of the high value links they have (many .edu links) are from old, now unmaintained pages, where I have no chance of getting a link (or even contact with a webmaster)
Its frustrating that they have so many good links to such an out of date page. I just wondered if any of you have had a similar situation. It just seems very hard to knock someone off that top spot if they have been established a long time, regardless of the quality of their content.
I guess there is no solution to it except to find lot of other high value links myself - so not so much a question as a comment really! but happy to hear peoples own experiences of that sort of situation.
-
The person who captures the high ground early can hold a long term advantage.
Since you are below them, crafting an extremely good title tag and snippet is essential to win clicks away from them. Offer surprise, mystery, free shipping, kickass price or free beer in your title to win traffic into your site.
-
Very good advice Nakul.
Long established websites do have the benefit of tons of solid links because when they started they all there was. If you're pulling in #3 spot that is great. And you are doing the correct thing in trying to contact folks that are linking to them if you have better / more recent information. We fight the same battles for old established companies that still out rank us for top keywords even though their site looks like they were made during Clinton's first term, and haven't been touched since.
Climbing up the ranking should be a little easier now (depending on your industry) due to social media. Get the buzz, forum and blog links and eventually you'll get the spot.
-
yes indeed, just voicing a frustration as much as anything really - but thanks for the response
-
I think you have answered the question yourself and you already knew that
"I guess there is no solution to it except to find lot of other high value links myself - so not so much a question as a comment really! but happy to hear peoples own experiences of that sort of situation." Just keep doing what you are (building/maintaining that great content), but also spend time in reaching out to people who would want to link to you. I would also possibly add a link to us box with an easy to use HTML code that people could use to link to you.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I just uncovered a massive 500+ domain PBN linking to competitors
As the title, some competitors I've been watching are using a PBN they (or their agency) have built. I'm looking to get some discussion on how you approach situations like this - do you just report all of the domains to Google and pray they do something? There are 4 sites I'm looking at, all competing in the same niche with very similar websites (different branding and content, but essentially the same pages). I thought all were related, but after Excel-ing all the domains to see which overlap I've found that there's several sets; PBN 1 covers 117 domains that link to competitors A, B & C. Signaling to me that these are owned by the same person. PBN 2 links together B & C with 30 domains, PBN 3 is just C with 40 domains. PBN 4 is just B with 105 domains. PBN 5 is just A with 10 domains. PBN 6 is D by itself with more than 340 domains. Signaling to me that this one probably isn't owned by the same person. It looks like new domains are added to these PBNs every week and this has been going on for quite some time. Now, I'm fully against use of PBNs that don't use authentic websites that provide value, and I can't find any of these sites that aren't just a basic WP template with a single-word text logo followed by spun content. This is a goldmine, because according to Ahrefs these sites are pulling in well over 500,000 monthly visitors between them, and these links make up the majority of each site's link profile. If these networks were to crumble, that would open up a big opportunity for more authentic sites to rank well. How would you recommend to tackle this? Do I find example URLs and write reports for each of the 500+ domains or are there better ways of working through this?
Link Building | | Leads.Bz0 -
301 redirect lost page authority & total links how ensure it passes on.
hello, I recently changed from www to non www. I have redirected my whole website so if I type www. it goes to the non-www page. doing a open site explorer I noticed my www. still has the page authority 14/100 with 6 links. where as the non-www page has 1/100 page authority and no links. how do I get the www. to mirror the non-www links?
Link Building | | finnmoto
eg if you goto http://www.finnmoto.com.au/mens-motorcycle-kevlar-hoodie/ it will goto the non-www version automatically, so why does the non-www replicate the page authority / total links attached picture for reference.
Google webmaster has been selected for non-www, its been about 2 weeks.
my domain authority i think about about 21 or more now its 19 aswell. I have a feeling:
nofollow or rel=canonical has something to do with it but Ill need read into what that does and how to apply. any ideas? uRiJ2Ul.png?10 -
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
Transfering Page Rank to internal pages.
Hi there, I have a website with page rank 6 on its home page. I was wondering how, and which could be the best way to pass this ranking to all internal pages. Is there a way?
Link Building | | bcgroup0 -
Do links from between common sites you run count as "bad" links?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been asked to review a group of sites. There are 3 sites, each of these sites has a link to the other two sites within the footer or the navigation.
These site are about a similar topic each provides a different perceptive or aims at a specific section of the industry so its not like the links are to irreverent sites. However because the links are in a global section they are repeated thousands of times on each site and count for a large proportion of the link profile to each site, I don't think this is good practise and I want to remove them or at least add a no-follow but my client insists they are relevant to each other and doesn't not want the links removing. What would be best in this situation? remove them? no-follow them? or leave them? Thank you in advance,
Liam0 -
Better to redirect domain or to link from home page?
Hi, I have a niche directory and sometimes clients remove themselves because they have discontinued their business practice. If they sometimes provide me with their own website (as they will no longer use it either), is it wiser for me to: a) directly point their URL 301 to my own directory b) keep their website as is, and add a url link to my directory in their homepage c) keep their website as is, and add an anchored link with the industry keyword to my directory Thanks! D
Link Building | | Demosthenes0 -
Link Baiting ineffective for money pages
I am thinking of creating link baits such as infographic for my site. Problem is, link baits only serve to bait links towards those link baiting pages isn't it? It doesn't actually help in improving the SERP of my money pages within the site (which have content that doesn't bait links). Yes I do know however, it will help in the site authority which might ultimately improve the SERP of my money pages, but it is all too ineffective and far fetched is it?
Link Building | | yunie_0 -
Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating. As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
Link Building | | joshuaopinion1