High listing with NO PageRank!

how are they doing it?

[bluegrass]

For my keyword, the Google results are:

1. Me (Great! - i've got a PR of 7)
2. A competitor with no PR at all showing on my Google toolbar!
3. Another competitor with a PR of 5

My question is, how can no.2 be doing it?

One additional piece of info... They own literally dozens of sites (not sure if they are separate IP addresses). But virtually no one outside these links to them. But if Google is taking account of these, which isnt it crediting the PR?

confused!

[dirkz]

but I'm now thinking I should change my name to something with the full keyphrase!

Better go for the high PR link from a government site :)

[dirkz]

I'm no 1, and I have over 200 backlinks, but I'm now thinking I should change my name to something with the full keyphrase!

Never change a running system :)

Anyway, if you're #1, what do you want to accomplish? There is nothing better than that, and certainly you won't kick out your competitor by doing this.

Better create a new domain (whatever name) and rank it higher than your competitor, so you are #1 and #2. And then go on.

[bluegrass]

Thanks,

The reason for changing names is because our two domains only differ by one letter (I'm the singular, and he's the plural!) Also the key searchphrase is the plural...

So in branding terms it's a nightmare.

I know I can't be better than no 1. But he can be better than no 2 and I need to make sure he isnt!

I could just add "site.com" on the end of my singular name to make it appear a plural.. Would that work?

On creating another domain... Do you mean a mirror site or what?

[dirkz]

If you change your domain name, even if you do a proper 301 obeying all of Google's recommendations, your site will dip a couple of weeks (minimum).

If you set up a mirror site you gain nothing. The only possibility would be to setup a new site with content of its own and rank it.

And of course getting more and more links and targeting other keywords as well, so you can stay ahead.