90% of backlinks are coming from unrelated web directory submissions

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Mal Ö Tonge: I don`t think Google will penalize a website for spammy backlinks as this is open to abuse from competition. What does happen is Google may boost a website because of backlinks but when they realize they are spam then drop you back to the position you was before. Its not penalization but more like taking away false accreditation.
  
  
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  Tim Capper: You are assuming that those links = his position and traffic
  
  
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  Sadat Rayid Odowa: Tim Capper so what else could give him good traffic, his content is a mess, 2 years old site with 33 garbage articles
  
  
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  E Dieter Martin: Sadat Rayid Odowa The competition is worse.
  
  
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  Michael Martinez: Sadat Rayid Odowa You don`t know how much traffic your competitors are getting.
  
  The SEO tools you use can only GUESS at what a site`s potential traffic might be. They are ALWAYS wrong.
  
  
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  Sadat Rayid Odowa: Michael Martinez thanks for your response, but do you think submitting a website to thousands of web directories can help me get traffic and also increase my site authority just like my competitor
  
  
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  Michael Martinez: Sadat Rayid Odowa You really need to stop doing this kind of research. You have no idea of what the search engines think of your competitors` sites.
  
  For the record, Web directory submissions have little to no real value in search engine algorithms.
  
  
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  Ammon Johns: You don`t win a race by running at the same racing-line at the speed as your competitor, but second.
  
  You don`t win business by approaching the clients a competitor just signed a deal with and expect the same deal to be on the table.
  
  In general, there are very, very few situations where copying your competitor is anything but foolish.
  
  Your job is to see what they do and do better. Not a little better, but as much better as possible.
  
  So if your competitor has mostly low value worthless links, that means you should be out there getting high value links, better links. Not the same but second to the table.
  
  
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  Christine Hansen: There are so many other things you could do instead of shady link building. You should focus on...
  
  1) making quality content that ppl would actually link to (also known as natural linking). Also, do update old content and SEO.
  
  2) Make a clever campaign and promotion strategy. Also, look for other channels than the obvious ones. Do KPIs for campaigns as well and follow it through.
  
  Btw Mentions in articles written by journalists are also worth a lot. It is possible to track Mentions.
  
  
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  Sadat Rayid Odowa: Christine Hansen all I have is my hands and my head, I don`t have anything like money for backlinks campaigns
  
  
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  Christine Hansen: Sadat Rayid Odowa Talking about a marketing campaign with goals like brand awareness or launching a new product (-line) or service with a focus on a target audience, a message with a USP or ESP, graphics (creative assets), and a promotion strategy. So many ways to promote even without money.
  
  
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  Stockbridge Truslow: To add to what Christine has said here... There are so many other things that competitor probably has done in addition to shady backlinking. The OP is assuming that these links are the cause of their success - but the truth is likely that their success is coming from other things and is happening IN SPITE of this.
  
  
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  Jeff Ferguson: Wait... they`re a competitor, but you know what kind of traffic they are getting? Did you mean ranking? Either way, how do you know what`s what`s causing either (hint: you don`t). Just because they have links doesn`t mean that Google gives a damn about them. They could have thousands of crap links that Google is ignoring, but a handful of winners that are making all the difference in the world. This is why you should take competitive research with a grain of salt... it`s a good place to start, but since you don`t know how well it`s working, be very careful.
  
  
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  Sadat Rayid Odowa: Jeff Ferguson Thanks for your response, I guess I should concentrate on high quality relevant backlinks
  
  
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  Jeff Ferguson: Sadat Rayid Odowa You should concentrate on all the things!
  
  
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  Sadat Rayid Odowa: Jeff Ferguson ok I get, I should on quality content, keyword research, technical SEO and off page, .
  
  
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  Jeff Ferguson: Sadat Rayid Odowa whatever you want to call it