SEO for Google

[daniel]

Hi all

I have been monitoring two sites very closely the last few months and i thought i would share my findings with you all.

The first site has terrible SEO, hardly any links and wasnt ranking well. The second site has had a steady link building program going for about a year.

About 5 months ago, the first site started doing some backlink building ( and thats all)
Their pages have duplicate content, titles etc.

They have not gotten any specific backlinks that could have done this, just standard directories

Now.

The first site is in top 5 in google, with a backlink campaign.

I dont understand this, i suppose it back to the basics, maybe we shouldnt be getting too technical

The joys of Google

Daniel

[Koz]

Hi Daniel,

Is the first site maybe in a niche market? I would maybe keep a close eye on it for next few months, as I'm sure the duplicate content will have its effect soon.

good luck

[Chatmaster]

That is very interesting...

[daniel]

Both sites are exactly in the same market. Same keywords etc

[Paz]

LOL... SEO's very complex because of the huge number of variables involved, many of which you can't quantify, such as Trust Rank and maybe proximity to a trusted/spam network for example. I alway's think that the devil's in the detail....

[Blazingpie]

What are the quality of the links to the 1st site? I mean, enough backlink strength would overrule any onpage problem... Plus what are the age of the domains in question, esp in relation to their competitors, and what is the strength of the competition? Are they targetting the same keywords?

[daniel]

They target the exact same keywords, the same directories are being used for link building,

In fact the first site is a much younger domain name.

That will throw a spanner !!!

Daniel