How much of a role plays time in ranking?

Hey,

I've build a niche site for a KW with 7000~ searches monthly in the middle of october. Currently I'm bouncing between rank 12-20. There's a competitor with a site 3 month older then mine and currently there is no big difference in terms of content between mine and his site (both similar but unique content), but I got way more backlinks and better onpage seo then he got. He has only 3 refering domains and it doesn't look like he's doing any offpage seo, while I've build over 30 refering domains in the last 2 month.

Last month his site was ranking between rank 10-15, now he ranks between 5-10. That's why I'm thinking it should be easy to get a nice spot with a better site.

Do you think I just should push more content and do more seo to see better results, or are 2 month just to short too see where my site really stands? What's your experience with the time factor on ranking a new site?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Hidden PBN links maybe??

I guess not, from the way his site is build up it doesn't really look like he would use a advanced tactic like that.

theres more that goes into it than just links, google also takes factors like bounce rate into account.

is his domain more aged than yours? higher pr/ da?

My experience is that time does play a role, but it's ability to hold a site back is significantly decreased by strong PR links and social signals.

His Domain is 3 months older then mine, regged in July. His DA is 3 points lower then mine, same with (SEOmoz) PA if that matters.

In some niches yes it matters.

30 links in 2 months is nothing. I build 30 links within the first 2 weeks.

You just need more links. Its that simple.

I think you should keep up the good PR links, good useful content for user and you will build domain authority with time