My site is http://windows8center.com We are usually one of the first sites to break news, but one problem we are never the original source. Despite that, there are many other sites who do the same thing as us, but they get linked. Even http://windows8beta.com was on techmeme today. I don't understand why. We always source articles, we don't publish spam, we have a lot of pictures on our website, and our posts are legitimate. My old site http://windows7center.com had the same problem until we ended up on digg a few times, then people started following us. The thing is I know for a fact that people from windows7center are now visiting windows8center, but why hasn't the respect for linking to us travelled through? Please give me some advice! It is really hurting the website.
That's very odd. Because i have checked the pagerank of your website, that is PR 4, the number of backlinks: Yahoo combine with altavista = 1187 backlinks and your domain is 2 years old. I don't see any reason why people don't want to link to your website.
You have a good website, but less traffic. Your alexa traffic rank is 6 digit! whereas the alexa traffic rank of windows8beta is 5 digit. Try to improve your traffic, links will come like a magic
I think the problem is simple and you said it: you're never the original source. When I come across a site like yours, I always go to the original source before I post it anywhere (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) for a couple of reasons: 1) The original source is usually much more credible 2) There's usually more discussion and comments on the original source since it's typically a more popular site I don't know that you can expect to build many natural links (or traffic) if you never create original, meaningful content.
your site has good page rank. keep up your social media marketing efforts, and people will start following you. you can also add some free software as giveaways on your site to make your site more popular.
I think you made all the most basic things concerning about link building on your website. Now, maybe it's time to go deeper: invest more in social media (you have only 400 followers, what is really low if you want to have more natural backlinks and brand exposition) and the most important: try to make more original content (discover the first of the firsts sources and spread the news faster than other great sites on the niche). Also creating original things like widgets from your blog can help a lot.