Why is this working for a competitor? Non-relevant backlinks helping them out?

[Deacyde]

A competitor is using a weird strategy, one I know isn't legit, however it's not only helping them, but doing in with a lot of speed.

I've ran their info through ahref, majestic, moz, semrush and for backlinks they have 225ish, here is their breakdown.

169 follow links from their parent distributor site ( which is located in their parent's site's footer )

and then 3 to 5 links from sites that relate to SEO, marketing, unrelated things like pocket calling article and comment spam.

maybe 5 of those links are from anywhere close to a related site, and those are from spammy directories from out of country.

Why would these backlinks be helping them so much, and how can I get in front of them when these craptactics are working for them?

They have 250 backlinks - 25 of them are follow

We have 300 backlinks - 90 are follow and from relevant sites like EPA.gov, some EDUs and related sites to our niche.

Some explanations or words of wit would really be helpful here, as I feel like something isn't adding up.

[Deacyde]

It's pretty hard, even from a creative standpoint ( of which I have experience in as an artist / maker )

After:

• content marketing
• scholarships ( only a few, were not rich )
• projects on manufacturers sites
• proper directories that people still use
• sending our resource links to service oriented sites for their customers
• Local businesses in form of local directory

The backlink grab bag grows smaller and smaller for this niche, gotta remember that our niche is so small and particular that mobile and tablet traffic isn't big at all, since our most popular customer type is a male in their 40s - 50s working either as a contractor or a small biz owner. There aren't many sites that even talk about our niche, let alone people actively interested in it, unless they need them.

I've been struggling for the past 6 months on backlinks, and previous SEO companies have as well before me. It's bad enough that when I do competitor backlink audits, I see the same directories, spam comments, article spins, unrelated content like article spinning and lots of sister sites being created just to link back and forth to.

Any suggestions in the creative backlink field would be honored at this point. As it is now, I send out about 10 to 15 emails daily to sites I feel would benefit from our large amount of help content I've created over the last 6 months, something our niche competitors have slacked bad on, while our customer's have called and complimented us on it, other sites could care less, even more so when I ask to link back in some " clever or even outright " fashion.

[rjonesx. 0]

Good questions...

1. No, it is not good practice to get links from an SEO site or unrelated sites, but that doesn't mean Google will catch it.
2. Sometimes, unrelated links are really good. For example, imagine a customer leaving a review for you on their own blog.
3. There is very little evidence that the relevancy of the linking page actually promotes rankings.

I doubt that it is really harder to win the lottery than to get links, even in NSFW niches. You just have to be creative.

[Deacyde]

Hello and thanks for responding,

What confuses me is where their follow links come from,

How is it even good practice to have backlinks from my own personal SEO site, or an article about phone calls when I sell commercial building supplies? Not to mention the bulk of their links having nothing to do with their niche that their site operates in?

Google says to get backlinks from relevant sites, this is where I am not following. How do they even have good links, if they aren't relative to commercial building supplies? And since they aren't relevant why are they helping them out so much? I've been following this site for the past 5 months, I can answer almost any question you might have about them.

Please ask a few to gather what you would need to know so maybe I could stop tearing my hair out.

As to the gathering good backlinks, in our niche, you're more likely to win the mega millions with one ticket ( goes out an plays ).

[rjonesx. 0]

Thanks for the question. It would be hard to know exactly without seeing the example sites, but there are many possible issues at play...

1. Is the competitor site using manipulated anchor text (ie: keywords as anchor text)
2. Do their links tend to point to the homepage while yours are dispersed across your site?
3. Is it possible they have other sources of links which aren't disclosed in 3rd party tools (like a 301 redirected site that blocks links)

There are any number of potential issues here. However, judging from the numbers you describe, there seems be a really simple solution... go get more good links!