500 backlinks vs. 5500 backlinks & good SEO

I have a site that has about 5500 backlinks. Almost all good quality, related content bla bla bla.

My #1 competitor has about 500 backlinks. Some good quality, some lousy. Their site looks like it was created in 1997 and hasn't been updated in centuries.

It ranks number one for the keywords I'm targeting, and I'm at number 18 or something like that. My on page SEO is strong, but I just can't seem to get it into the top 10. It's been live for about 3 months now, and has steadily crept up, but is stuck. I'm out of ideas to get it boosted up. I've never had this problem before so I'm in new territory.

 

My story is the same.

 

Probably just a time thing, how old is the competitors site?

 

If your site has been "live" for only 3 months and you have 5,500 links, then Google will think you are link building to fast. Hopefully, it is an old domain not a new one.

Also, I think there is a 6 month delay on Google giving you credit for a link. And that is 6 months after it first detects the link.

Have you done a Top 10 Competitor Report on your site. This should give you additional ideas to look at.

 

Older sites are generally higher ranked really.

 

Mine was created on July 30th of this year. The competitor site was created in 2006, so he's got the age on his side. I guess I'll just keep building links steadily. I'm bound to overtake that lousy site eventually..I will dominate the niche!

 

That's my experience with my niche, I have several sites that's on top 10 and their contents are very old, going back to late 90's and not have been updated - yet ranked highly.

 

It's more about the backlinks being aged than the actual site being aged.

 

Hello,

As other has mentioned your website is suffering a temporary or permanent penalty for over-optimization. 5500 links in 3 months is a bit too much. Also do make sure that you have used different variations of keywords for those 5500 links. It happened to me in the past to only pick a few keywords and literally bomb them with links. Google saw all the links and I was nowhere in top 500 because it was clear for google that the links were not genuine.

 

google is really unpredictable guys. they have a boot whcih changs reguraly like camelion

 

domain ages plays a big role in ranking search engines the older the domain the more it is been trusted by search engines. thats the reason why. just keep doing what you do and wait then you will reach your goal of getting to the first page of your targeted keywords seo is all about patience and hardwork.

 

Patience, they have been around for longer then you and the sandbox can take 9 months to get out of.

 

It seems to me that domain age really plays an important role in SEO if you are comparing a site of about 4-5 years to a year of about 3 months.

But I doubt if there will be great difference between 5 and 10 years.

 

Aha, I just bought a domain about 2 month and I built my links over 6000 in only 1 month. I guess I might got penalty from google. because it's been 2 months exact today, but my domain not rank in top 100 yet. I should have slow down.

Is there anyone know, how long is the penalty gonna last? and when I expect my domain to rank well?

 

Im experiencing the same thing, one of my sites is only 2 years old my competitors are a minimum of 7 years. My links are of quality and I have over 800, my comp has 250 links mainly from directories! Im just waiting for update.

Keep building more quality backlinks.

 

its possible your site has just been sandboxed waiting a manual inspection.. normally takes 6 months or so to get out i find.

 

i think old site mean Trusted.

 

I'm not in the sandbox. I'm ranking 15 for the particular keyword phrase I'm going after. I hovered in the 30's for a while, but I seem to be stuck on page two. If I was sandboxed, you probably wouldn't find me on page 10.

 

My web site is 3 years old but have the same story...
New site come on top but my didn't....

 

Before giving my suggestion I would like to have know both of the website, can you please give links of that website?