Determining the value of link(s)

[Simon.P]

I have been watching 2 competitors who are usually between 1-4 serp for 2 keywords i am working on. One of them has a few pages, very little copy, the same titles across pages and when i ran the url through the google speed test thing, it said it was slow. I did a reverse lookup and it is on a shared host with 344 other sites (some adult stuff which i thought was a no no for ranking signals too). They don't have a google places, maps or plus page.

All of this led me to believe their position is down to the links coming in. I used smallseotools and they have loads of links but most of them look like garbage to me. One of them is from a website in a nearby area which doesn't really rank for much as far as i can see. I can only see the link in the source too. It looks like some of the links are being hidden through html, or some type of form. The anchor text is not for the keyword i am referring to as well. They have a tonne of links from ligerlink, woorank and intently to name a few.

I have a lot to do SEO wise first, but just curious on others opinions on this inbound link malarky. I understand Google has clamped down big time on link farms, but its still worth building sites which are related to the keywords you are targetting and pointing at one another.

 

[StevePoster]

I understand Google has clamped down big time on link farms, but its still worth building sites which are related to the keywords you are targeting and pointing at one another.

Link farms from low quality sites will never be effective for Google rankings and also link exchange in which considered as manipulation technique.

 

[Clinton]

I used smallseotools and they have loads of links but most of them look like garbage to me.

Then they are probably garbage. Google are crap at detecting bad links.

Let me say that again. Google are crap at detecting bad links. That's why they introduced nofollow and disavow and all kinds of other nonsense .... which have just served to screw the link map up further.

I understand Google has clamped down big time on link farms...

What Google says it's doing and what Google actually does are very different. This is not new.

Remember this: Google doesn't like manual intervention in the algo. Find a particular site using a new type of bad link and Google won't take action against them. Instead Google will try and work out an algorithmic solution that will detect future such bad links on other sites. This is great, but it means that in most cases Google won't immediately ban the site and you might find the site ranking well ... for years!

And there are sites out there with really nasty link profiles that have been doing very well indeed despite all the noise Google's talking monkey has made about quality links.

So, find something that works, even if it's bad. Use it. Benefit. If you get banned in a year or two apologise, clean up, ask for reinclusion.

Or, better still, find another source of traffic and stop relying on Google!

 

[ukbf0001]

As you probably know not all links are equal, some are no follow, some are low quality etc. Google dont and wont give you the data you need anymore - but if you use something like seo spyglass - that has it's own MASSIVE link database (second only to Google) that will give you all the detail you want on your competitors - discard the crappy low quality one - filter out the ones to chase and just go for those - there is a free version you can play with

 

[websensejim]

All of the paid tools (ahrefs, majestic, LRT, etc) are missing huge chunks of the link graph, maybe as much as 40%. If you really want to be thorough, you'll have to run them all, and de-dupe. And then query Google. Google has more of the data than the rest, it just doesn't like to show you. But you can squeeze more out of it by running a series of advanced searches (using filters).

 

[ukbf0001]

seo-spyglass uses the webmeup database which is the largest (are importanty) freshed up to date link data information available - and certainly more than enough of what you need.

 

[Simon.P]

Hello,
Sorry, i thought i had replied to this!!! Thanks for the info, many thanks