Comparing 3 sites and their ranks

[Atomicx]

I am looking at 3 sites and what they have going for them and why they are ranking how they are. I would like to get some of your feedback on why certain sites are above other ones.

One of these sites is a client of mine, I will not point out which one. The other 2 are just competitors.

http://www.cornhole-game.org/cornhole-bags.html

http://www.samscornholebags.com/

http://www.ajjcornhole.com/cornhole-bags.php

I have compared them in OSE and they have PA of 39, 29, and 58 respectively. AJJ has a ton of links, many of which are spammy and irrelevant. It looks like a link package was bought at some point. The other two have a similar number of links but www.cornhole-game.org/cornhole-bags.html has more anchor text themed links. None of which seem to be overly optimized. http://www.samscornholebags.com/ seems to have a lot of company branded anchor text links compared to keyword links. http://www.ajjcornhole.com/cornhole-bags.php as I said obviously bought links and has a ton of stuffed keyword links on poor sites

http://www.ajjcornhole.com/cornhole-bags.php has minimal social shares

http://www.cornhole-game.org/cornhole-bags.html  has about 30 shares

http://www.samscornholebags.com/ has about 30 shares but a good number of likes and some other social signals.

All 3 sites have an A grade using the on page grade tool here on this site. All 3 got dinged for keyword stuffing.

http://www.samscornholebags.com/   ranks the highest with the least amount of links and PA

http://www.ajjcornhole.com/cornhole-bags.php  ranks next with a really poor link profile and the least amount of social activity

http://www.cornhole-game.org/cornhole-bags.html  ranks the lowest with anchor text links that are not spammed and some social activity

So with all of this in mind, would anybody care to weigh in on why they think any of these sites are ranking where they are in comparison to one another.

[Laurean]

NoahGlaser,

I'm sure the SEO Moz algorithm works, but I'm pretty sure the DA of the sites linking in plays an important factor in the establishment of the DA.  The more links you have from higher-then-you DA sites, the higher your score grows.

From my research on other sites, the algorithm doesn't care if the sites were paid for or not. if AJJ paid bought a bunch of links, and they are lucky enough to pass the SEO MOZ filter - then good for them!  I have a lot of contractor clients that are in the same boat, and as a result of the SEO MOZ competitive links, went toe to toe with the competitor's purchased links.

It may sound dirty, and expensive, but it's the way it is sometimes.  If your client can afford it, they are better off.  Because - at least they know where the link equity is coming from and they can level the playing field.  And that's what they pay you for!