It is always important to see how the top sites have reached their positions. You may learn alot of useful information. If you check from where the top sites that are ranked for your keywords receive their links, you may try to get links from these sites too.
I don't really get the point of this thread. Yes, link analysis is important, even if it's just to determine the competitiveness of an industry.
It's certainly not a waste of time. I like to try to get on the first page results, and see what my neighbors are doing on their page link wise and also with their onpage optimization techniques. I try to look at reasons they're ranking higher than me. Then I look for things they're not doing, and try to one up them..I study their anchor text and see how many different phrases they use. I completely agree that it's important to analyze what is currently working and getting good results. But it's not JUST analyzing links...
Well the point is I have 100s of keywords for my clients, my partners, & myself on the top positions of all three major search engines and have never done any link analysis. All markets are competitive. Being as there are only 10 spaces available on the front page, the level of competition is the same spread through out all categories. Competition level arises in the form of keyword terms. Sometimes it is best to explain this in a way others can easily relate to. When you take you car to a mechanic, and they put the car on their scanning machine, it does not focus on one certain aspect of the engine, but every piece needed to operate the engine at it's full potential. Same as when you go to the Doctor for a physical he does not look in your eyes and say all is well and leave. He will however look in your eyes, ears, nose, listen to your chest and more. Again analyzing 1 part of an algorithm of over 100 parts is a waste of time. Analyzing something the search engine itself does not divulge fully it's counts or scoring would certainly seem to be an exercise in futility. Thanks for the replies. Keep aiming for the top!
I have to give Mong his proper credits http://backlinkwatch.com/ Not a bad tool for those who like to over analyze data when they could be doing more productive things. Very good tool Mong...I've actually started using it for potential new client analysis so thank you!!!
Part two of Link Analysis is 'Keyword Analysis' and for doing this analysis you can use http://www.nichewatch.com you need to register but its hassle free process
You can only achive a better level than your competition of you first reach that level. Competitor Backlink Analysis can be the best way to reah to that level by trying and getting links on all the pages where your competitor is. Then, you don't only see 1 competitor. You analyze links of several competitors and try and get links from the sites linking to them. If you carry it out properly, theres a very good chance you will be doing better than your competition.
This is exactly what I was going to type. Well said. The OP's posit that analyzing competitors' links is done in vain is ill-conceived. Knowing what your competitors are doing is an important aspect of every business. You don't want to do everything they do, but you should know what they are doing right, what they are doing wrong, and what they aren't doing at all. This works with finding winning ads as well. Much easier and cost-effective to do analysis on your competitors than testing and measuring your own ads yourself.
NOT all subjects are equally competitive. In some niches the top 10 have only 10 links pointing to them. I others it's thousands of links. Other than that this thread covers every issue around whether or not to do link-analysis, I think. Personally I don't do it, but that's just me.
diamond brokers Google # 1 2 or 3 for over 2 years straight never faltered custom top 8 # 1 move it if you can I helped JackR from here at DP take his site to # 1 or # 2 for london escort, london escorts either one. I have 100s of others.... Ill conceived you say?? Never spent more than a few minutes looking at the competition. Everything is based on an algorithm, using aberrations & percentages etc. If a site is # 1 for any given keyword term it can be taken down. It isn't the links..... this is easily proven Google custom t shirt Site at # 2 is www.shirtmagic.com has 380,000 links according to Yahoo Pages Cached: 1,630 Site at # 7 www.cafepress.com/ Has 18,100,000 links according to Yahoo Cached: 7,080,000 So what is to waste on link analysis? There is no way you could determine anything between those two considering the vast differences in counts. The only thing that could be drawn as a conclusion is site 2 has better quality links than site 7. You would need a year to determine which links came from a higher quality site and while my competition may waste time doing that I am doing 100s of other things to earn money and dog my competitors. The sites at # 1 have solved a percentage of the algorithm, so to beat those sites, all anyone needs to do is solve a higher percentage of the algorithm. Look at competitors for Ad writing?? Never I wouldn't copy anyones work as who to say it works?? It is like in school when friends would cheat off other friends...turns out they cheated from someone who was dumber than they were http://www.sem-advance.com/ppc/camp1.jpg That is just one little ad group, so my conversion numbers back that up. Peace!
What works for you works for you Sem-Advance, I believe you. I'm not saying that it is imperative to do competitor link analysis but your suggestion that it is a waste of time is ill-conceived. Many people in this thread alone have already mentioned various ways it can be beneficial, especially for brand new sites. When I mentioned to look at competitors for ads, I'm talking about seeing where they are advertising, what they are advertising, and how long they are advertising, not to copy their ad or exact strategy. Jay Conrad Levinson knows a thing or two about marketing and he notes that many classified advertisers have had ads run for fifteen years and that they wouldn't spend their money there if they weren't getting a good return. This is probably even more true online because measurement is easier. If a competitor is running the same ad over a period of time you can deduce that it is probably giving a nice return. Knowing your competition is vital. Doing research on them can provide extremely valuable information and prevent you from wasting large sums of time and money.