Being Beat by a compeitor will less everything..how?

OK, so I am getting beat by a competitor and am not sure why. I am 6th for Make Money at home and he is 4th. According to SEOmoz page strength tester, me page is a 3.5 and his is a 3.0.

From what I can tell, I beat him in number of links, quality of links (most of his are articles sites?)
Looks like I beat him with achor text and (most importantly) content.

So this goes against everything I have learned about SEO.

Does anyone have any thoughts that they can share?

"You think" it is this and that. Is that really what it is? My hunch is it boils down to the quality/value of the links pointing to the competitors site.
You aren't using google links command to check the links are you? Also just because he doesn't have his keywords in his anchor text as much as you doesn't mean he doesn't have as much or more value than you. Sometimes it only takes one good link to make massive progress.

The content/quality/relativity of the linking site has far more to do with the anchor text my friend.

Both you and visio have good points. I am going through his links one by one, so far I am still confident I beat the quality/relevance check. Still, like you said it could be one link. I notice as well that his ranking changes drastically from #4 or 5 to under #100 from week to week.

Aside from matching links ( going fro link to link and trying to get some of the same links he has,) and doing some article submissions.,,I am not sure what else I can do. I've spent 6 months gathering links from directoriesm article sites, recip exchanges, text link ads, blog sponsoring, written link requests. Ha, in fact the only thing I am really lacking is major link bait (aside from my site content)

I would start with your anchor text in your site. Your competitor uses make money at home in a number of different ways in his interlinking. Also, I don't see a site map.

Thanks,

Site map is at the very bottom.

Anchor text in the site...hmm. that is something I did not consider. I'll take a look at that as well.

Oh just for kicks and giggles, here is the link pop score for both sites using the tool that visio's sig refers too.

His:
PageRank 4
Alexa Rank 555,615
Google Back Links 761
MSN Backlinks 388
Yahoo! Backlinks 1,100

Mine:
PageRank 3
Alexa Rank 307,460
Google Back Links 2,667
MSN Backlinks 3,643
Yahoo! Backlinks 1,340

Thanks again for the advice guys.

Make more linkbaitish pages with catchy titles that you can digg and delish..

Making Money 101
How to Make Money in 2007
10 Easy Money Making Tips
Make Money From Home, Seriously...

I know i'd click on 2 of the 3 above if i was bored...

And Navy is VERY right about internal anchor text- its often over looked (especially by me)

And this is why I continue to use SEO chat (even if I got a slap on the wrist with a lame warning LOL).

Thanks Tadpole, Navy and Visio. I will use all the advice and get back with ya on the results.

As always I am open to more comments and feedback.

You footer isn't showing in IE-7, I see it in FF.

I take it you realize that directory and recip links have been disvalued. That is why you appear to have much more than him when in reality the competitor actually has more value. I am sure you knew that but just in case thought i'd throw it out
Also instead if disecting his backlinks and trying to get his backlinkers to link to you worry about getting your own backlinks from better sites. You said you don't have a good linkbait. got a little extra cash? Well create one. Aaron Wall is pretty good at thinking them up and I am sure if you emailed him he would give you some suggestions. He has a great thread on Linkbaiting strategies .
Also this one:http://www.seobook.com/archives/001994.shtml

A good linkbait not only will conquer this search engine ranking but will gain many more. They are well worth the money.

Ah, good catch. was using a relative not absolute

My search shows you at #4 today ...

Allinanchor:keywords also shows you at #4

Sometimes Google waits for links to age a little before counting them fully.

Also with the increasing number of supplemental pages, I find that it takes a little longer to find some new links. Those pages don't get crawled as frequently as the main index.

awesome thanks visio. I was also unaware that recips ad directories were disvalued. I knew they were reduced but did not know by how much.

As far as being #4 RTCHAR, are you sure you were looking at the right site? Everything I see still shows *success* at #6.

They are disvalued to a degree depending on the relevance of the page, how many links are pointing out, to whom and the quality of the page the link is on.

I don't know what your site is so I am not sure where it is. Is your site: successwithauctions?

Yes, that is the site.

I was wondering about devalued directories, as I have some new sites that need seo'd. Obviously I will be spending less time on directories this time around.

And sorry for the typos, learning to use an ergo keyboard