Should I Just Copy A Competitor's Backlinks?
-
Forgive the newbie question, but now that I have found SeoMoz and OpenSiteExplorer, should I just piggy back on my competitors backlinks? What would be the downside?
By way of explanation, I've never had the need to explore SEO before. Our site, Widgets.com has always ranked highly for all Widgets keywords because we have the keyword in our domain and our site has been around since 1998.
But out of the blue this summer, a site, let's call them WidgetsCircus.com suddenly began outranking us on widgets keywords, and pretty much every keyword we can imagine in our little widget universe.
Now that I have run OpenSiteExplorer, I can see how they've done it. They've pretty much spent the last year commenting on blog posts all over the place, editing wiki pages, etc., and built thousands of links for all these widget keywords.
So, I'm wondering: why shouldn't I just go down the list of links and do exactly what they've done? Where they commented on a blog, why don't I just comment right along side them. Obviously, this has worked for them! Wouldn't it work for us too?
Or is that too simple?
-
Actually, they're pretty easy to copy. Just a bunch of open blog posts and forum profile spam.
-
Should I Just Copy A Competitor's Backlinks?
With most competitors this is not possible because: 1) they control the sources of those links, or, 2) those links were awarded on the basis of merit and you probably don't merit.
You rarely win by mimicking a competitor. You win by doing something superior.
-
Yep. Direct message. I'll send you one now.
-
I am unsure what DM is, but based on the context I am guessing Private Message? If so you are welcome to do such.
-
Do you do any guest blogging to obtain links, I have found this to be effective for link building and it has increased my search engine results.
-
Thanks for the advice. I do have to say, all the spammy blog comment links are surrounded by like 200 others spammy links to other sites. Very rarely are they there all by themselves, except for when they've joined a forum to put a link in their profile page.
You willing to DM? Unsure if I want to publicly share URLs.
-
The best practice would be to be aware of your competitor's links and look for opportunities. Look for high quality pages where the competitor earned links.
Most blog commenting is very low value from a SEO perspective. If you are an authoritative member of the community which offers the blog, you are one of the first commenters and you share a quality reply with a link then it can have value IF the link is followed and the page is not stuffed with 100 other links. Most blogs which don't nofollow their links have almost no value as they are filled with spam and links.
You are presuming the site's links are the reason why they are outranking you and it is entirely possible the links are not the reason at all. If you would like more detailed feedback please share your site URL, your competitor's URL and a couple sample keywords where you are being outranked.
-
I know the usuals about creating valuable content. We've done that. That's how we've gotten where we are.
And actually, I can see in open site explorer which of the links are follow vs. nofollow. That's what I'm saying... they're very, very good at this. They've built literally hundreds of back links on random blogs with open commenting and follow links.
This is exactly the question I'm asking: I KNOW this is spammy link building, but I'm in the position of asking, since I can't beat them, why not join them?
-
Widgets.com was a generic example of our site. I didn't mean our site is literally Widgets.com. It was an analogy.
-
When I visit widgets.com the only thing I saw were advertisements... so I thought Content would be your main issue because with only a domain name you're not going to make it to the top of Google search results.
Then I went to your competitors website, but that just gave me an error page... maybe they block European traffic, but I doubt that..
Being a copycat can get you some results... maybe... but commenting on blog posts to get backlinks isn't the best technique to really get quality. If you use open site explorer, try to understand the metrics of a good backlink and only go after those. That's what I recommend, and then go on to build quality links yourselve, and not only on places where your competition is...
-
Hi Brian
This is an easy question to answer; "absolutely not". Please don't copy them, you'll end up regretting it.
How you've described your competitors' links makes them fall into the 'worthless spam' category; their efforts would have been for little gain, especially any long term gain, plus they've risked getting penalised for link spamming.
Links from blog posts are usually nofollow so will hold zero SEO value, there is only a small percentage of decent blogs out there.
To acquire some links that will actually be of benefit to your website, create some unique relevant interesting valuable Content for your visitors and Distribute this well. In turn, you'll likely be rewarded with some great natural links. Infographics with a text link built in can really help.
I hope this has been of some help to you.
Regards
Simon
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
-
Get backlinks to Http or Https?
Hello, My website using SSL . My root domain : example.com is permanent 301 redirect to https://example.com via .htaaccess Question : 1 - If i want get backlinks from other websites is backlinks should point my https domain or non https domain. Is there any difference for ranking? 2 - if someone give backlinks to my non https domain Is there any value for https for ranking? 3 - Before i begin use SSL , backlinks in the past which i get for ** Http**, Is there a value for https ? Thank you, Sorry for bad English
Link Building | | livecam0 -
"Bad" backlinks
Hello dear community, I am new here and quite new to SEO. Perhaps someone could give me a hint on a following question: Which tools can help me to track "bad" baclinks, e. g. links which would rather downgrade my SEO performance?
Link Building | | hochzeitsfotograf0 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
Can You Rank Without Backlinking?
With all the new emphasis on on-page metrics and social metrics, would it be possible to rank well without putting much emphasis on backlinking if your content is significantly better than the rest of the ranking pages? Say #1 to #5 are pages of 500 word generic content. We come in with 2,000 word specific, high-quality content. Can we get by without spending as much time/energy on backlinking? Would the on-page factors make up for it, or has the game not changed that much?
Link Building | | DerekP1 -
How do I get quality, relevant backlinks?
Hi, I am trying to improve the SEO our my website which sells mens designer clothes. I know the huge value of backlinks on relevant, high ranking/authoirtive sites. Problem is how do I find these sites? I am currently using twitter, facebook and google to find relevant blogs, websites, forums etc... (ones in the fashion, menswear, designer clothing field) but it is a slow and tedious process. I there any tools, that I can use that find these high ranking sites or is it a case of me searching, searching and requesting to have an article published from blog owners with a link to one of my product pages in etc...? Any help on backlinking and best way to approach would be great. Thanks
Link Building | | WillBlackburn
Will0 -
Youtube Backlink
We've had our Youtube Channel fairly optimized for several months now. Part of that effort includes the link back to our site which is allowed on Youtube. When doing link research I see Youtube links being given credit to competitors but haven't seen Youtube show up in backlinks reports for our site yet. Is there any way to speed this up? Our Youtube page with the link has been indexed and a cached version of the page is in Google's SERPs. If there are any tricks to getting this going that anyone is aware of I'd like to hear it. *The link on Youtube returns a 200 and is followable. I'm using the SEOMOZ tool and Open Site Explorer to do backlinking research.
Link Building | | dgmiles0 -
Why isnt google picking up my backlinks?
Over the last 2 months, my company has had almost 10 articles placed on very established websites. When I search for my company's backlinks on Google Advance Search, its not picking them up. Why?
Link Building | | BYSM0