Geeks on Steroids

When we surf the internet we see every website as its own little island, however as search engine optimizers we have to be able to see how websites connect with each other. When taking on a new client the first thing I want to do is understand how their website fits into the grand scheme of the Internet world.  In the real world we all live in different neighborhoods, well the Internet works the same way. The first step is identifying which neighborhood our client lives in. I can do this by getting a list of their most competitive keywords and doing a search for those keywords.   This will identify both the tall buildings and the landscape. We first look for the tall buildings, you know the sites that keep showing up over and over in the top ten when searching for a competitive keyword.   Are there any spam sites in the top 10?   How old are the sites in the top ten?   How much advertising is going on?