My Competitors’ Backlinks are Manipulative. What should I do?

Most businesses look at their competitors’ backlinks.

And in many cases, the common question is “Why doesn’t Google take any action against my competitor’s manipulative links?”

Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst, discuss competitive backlink research and how to interpret it these days.

Whenever you do a competitive backlink research, there’s bound to be some questionable links in their backlink profile.

But the thing is, we don’t know if Google even counts those links. Google is filtering out a lot of spammy links you may find in anyone’s backlink profile.

We don’t know whether those links are added to your competitor’s disavow.

Your competitor may get some short-term links by buying links but those spammy links will ultimately be filtered out, or there may be a manual penalty coming in just a few days.

You never know.

It is not as straightforward as it used to be several years ago when Google encouraged us to report questionable links your competitors are getting.

Is It Worth Looking at Your Competitors’ Backlinks?

Yes

But try to look at a bigger picture rather than trying to identify which of those links you should pursue.

Instead, find their linkable content to understand why that content generated so many links and if there’s a lesson to learn here.

A good backlink is something you cannot easily duplicate. It something you earn by creating great content that people want to link to. So when reviewing your competitors links, try to find those and understand how they got those.

What kind of content (articles, tools, etc.) did they create to get that link?

Answering that question will give you ideas, not the clear path on how to duplicate that link building tactic.