This document discusses steps for reverse engineering competitors' search engine rankings: 1. Aggregate data on the top 10 ranking sites for target keywords, including over 80 factors like number of links, anchor text, domain authority metrics, and social signals. 2. Analyze the data visually through charts and graphs to identify trends and uncover unnatural linking profiles for competitors. 3. Use insights from the data analysis to inform strategies to improve the client's own search engine rankings, such as seeking natural, relevant links from evergreen pages rather than homepage links. Stop building links without a clear game plan informed by competitive analysis.

1. Reverse Engineering Competitors Rankings8/31/2010@wilreynolds

2. 23 stepsStep 1 - Background on REAL client exampleStep 2 - How a losing SERP changed our processStep 3 - Turn data analysis into SERP improvement

3. 3“Let’s get Busy”

4. Client who has links from

5. 5Client profile10+ years online.edu links from research4 million searches / month Newspaper / magazine linksSome SERPS are adult categoryCEO is sought after by media outlets

6. 6Competitive SERPOnly 1 result in the top 10 of Google had a link from 1-2 of these quality magazine / newspaper sites

7. Tee-Ball right?7

8. This guy is gonna love me8

9. 9What did those big media drops do?Let me show you…

10. 10

11. 11Nothing Like Getting your Butt Kicked

12. 12To make you change the way you do things

13. What I needed…Needed to bring in a vast amount of data on the top 10 sites for target keyword.Include big brands and exact match domains even though you won’t learn a ton from themMore KWs = uncover trendsNeeded to be way more deep than PR & link talliesSEOQuake was not going to do it (poor mans)13

14. 14Time to get some data

15. Manual Aggregation80 factors About ½ come from OSE or are calculated by multiple OSE metricsOthers come fromTwitter*DeliciousAlexaMajesticYSEGoogle webmaster tools15

16. Manual AggregationFactors# of links (excel limits at 10,000 – impacts %’s)Compare OSE, YSE, Majestic (conditional formats)Linking domains relative to # of links (sitewides)Linking domains w/o anchorLinking domains w/ domain name as anchor% of links with targeted anchor text% links from edus – ex: competitor 16

17. Factors to reviewFactorsDomain agemR & mTMajor 301 event (trigger by outliers)Steady growth (.edus/ high mT)% keywords in domain# of linking domains over 25/50 domain auth% of linking domains over 25/50 domain auth% of links over 25/50 domain auth17

18. Manual Aggregation – Excel First18

19. 19The output of this data aggregation looks like this…

20. 20API’s and scripts make mistakes

21. 21Use validation to catch them When PR is over 10

22. When # of OSE links > Majestic links

23. When AC Rank puts a domain in the top 10% yet it is not in the top 40% mT/mRVisuals, Visuals, Visuals22

24. Visual Trends23

25. Link analysis visuals Go from this24

26. % Anchor text vs Brand Links

27. Link analysis To this…26

28. Importance of Visuals27

29. So what did we learn from this experience?28

30. Gameplan FIRST29

31. Use analysis to uncover Un-Natural link building profilesYourself & Your competitors30

32. Un-Natural Works but is risky31

33. 32Client who is at 20% the average of the top 10 is 2.5% - time to diversify

34. Homepage link juice / domain authority on large sites does not really flow to article pagesAuthority links don’t add instant valueBig sites paginate like crap and bury stories33

35. What happens when you get exact match anchor texton a page 1 link from the homepage of one the most popular women’s magazines in the world…34

36. What happens when you get exact match anchor texton a page 1 link from the homepage of one the most popular women’s magazines in the world…Nada35

37. Refuse to take a butt kickin’ lying down36

38. Here’s what we did about it…37

39. Getting the links we NEEDEDSought out pages that don’t cycle content that have been around for a LONG time:SponsorsIn Kind DonationsTestimonialsSupporters38

40. You must socially promote the page where your link lives.TwitterFacebookDelicious39

41. You must socially promote the page where your link lives.Queries in TwitterQueries in Forums [keyword phrase] + powered by vbulletin / phpbbSubscribe to search results in yahooYahoo Answers40

42. Good homepage / evergreen page linksBadges / AwardsWatch the anchor textWordcamp / other “camps”Edu discounts41

43. Bad homepage / evergreen page linksBought homepage links in blogrolls with exact match anchor textWatched bought links on homepages of “cigarette sites” work like a charmphpdircetory link swaps working like it was 200442

44. What you learn from spammersReverse engineering rankings lets you see how long spam and aggressive tactics last(actually watch the serps)43

45. I see a site with only reciprocals + 2 kws in domain winning44

46. 45

47. I see localcleaning up spam with one of our clients who has the weakest link profile in the top 10 (not in the 7 pack)46

48. Double D’s of SEO47Diversificationefendability

49. Manual Aggregation48Download the exact / phrase match counter - http://bit.ly/boiFGz

50. Create your game plan49

51. 50 Stop building links

52. Build data on the top 10 and trend it (25 data points)