I often see SEOs, webmasters and site owners complaining that their competitors are building spammy links, buying links, doing PBNs and more and yet their competitor ranks well and is doing excellent in the Google results. They say, why shouldn’t I do the same thing? Good question but the truth is, you really don’t know if those spammy links are helping them.

The links may be helping them, it may be hurting them or more likely, it may not count at all and those efforts may be wasted on your competitors part. You simply can’t assume those spammy links are the reason the site is outranking you.

John Mueller of Google responded to such a complaint in the Google Webmaster Help forums explaining all of this. An individual reported all the link spam and John responded:

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.