We also know that sometimes you find a competitor that is somehow kicking your butt on the SERP’s and you are just not sure why. You have looked at their articles and may still be baffled (we know their post are not as good as yours
)It may be that they have more backlinks that you.
Maybe they have more links on DoFollow pages.
Maybe the sites they have links on are high traffic (even if they are NoFollow).
Maybe they are using different anchor text.
Just those 4 things could make a huge difference in your placement on the SERP’s.
I often check the backlinks of site competitors with Yahoo Site Explorer but, the problem with it is you have to go to each link to see their anchor text & if it is a Do Follow link they have gotten.
I have been using Back Link Watch to get a quick overview of where and what the competition is doing as far as linking.
Mind you it is not perfect but, it is just another free tool that may give you some answers.
On the site just load in the URL of your competitor and submit. This will bring up a list of their backlinks & tell you the Anchor Text they used, the exact link they promoted, and if it is a Do or No Follow link. It states that it will tell you the Page Rank of the site the link is on but, I have yet to get that part to show. This tool will also tell you how many other links are listed on the site with your competitors link.
Now you can start to understand where you may want to get links from or even what anchor text to change.
HINT: When you load in the URL you want to check, it automatically has the WWW in the link box. Some people do NOT place the WWW when building backlinks so, check their URL with & without the WWW.
