Why Am I Outranking a Page With Far More Backlinks?

bernard

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Ok guys, so I don't have that much data to go on, since I don't have Ahrefs except free version, but consider this:

Review keyword, I am currently ranked 6th, I have 2.9 DR according to Ahrefs.

Sites behind me are at least 1-2 years older, fully optimized Title etc.

7th rank has 34 DR and 2 years more. I have maybe 10 good links. They have 100 and have spent probably $5000-$10000 or more buying advertorials and PBN links. Small numbers for some of you, but this is a much smaller country and market.

Why I am moving past them? This is the second time it has happened, also happened with my niche site.

Allow me to speculate that it is content grouping.

For example, I list my sources at the end of all articles. I link my money pages with info pages as recommended here, but just as important is that I link out. I link to respected sources such as scientific papers and I link to forum discussions etc. I see a clear connection here. Could a factor in the new Google be to put yourself in the right neighborhood? Imo, why would you ignore that Google results now are all about grouping content? Video, shopping, studies, pdf, images and for each keyword you click on "image" for, they are even so nice as to group related keywords. Google knows topics now, it is clear to everyone right?

Maybe this is common knowledge, but to anyone still considering going the PBN/advertorial route, it doesn't seem good value to me honestly. As CCarter and others have pointed out, it is a massive time and financial drain on what could be used on your site.
 
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Could a factor in the new Google be to put yourself in the right neighborhood?

This isn't new at all, but you're right about it for sure. Relevancy has been a thing for a long while now, outbound and inbound relevancy. Check this out about the Hilltop Algorithm. Sometimes Google wants to rank authorities on the matter (who has the most links) and sometimes they want experts (who gives the most links). That's super simplified but that should put you on the trail.

Why I am moving past them?

Could be freshness. You state that these other sites are much older. I did an experiment recently where I refreshed all my old commercial posts and got 20% extra traffic (traffic I had lost over time). That definitely plays a role too.
 
Very interesting Ryu. Expert vs Authority. Something to keep in mind for sure.
 
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