Why Top Ranked Sites May Have Few Backlinks
Saturday, November 29, 2008 by rain
One is that, the particular keyword may seem competitive for you, but it's not, so few backlinks are going to make the "trick". You just found a gem maybe.
Did you make the search with quotes? You will not see the top competitors when using quotes with your keyword. Visitors nowadays do not use quotes to search. When entering keyword in search box to see the competitors do not use quotes.
The other answer may be that you used an outdated tool to check for backlink count for your competitors. Google does not show all backlinks - so you should use Yahoo Site Explorer. Google hides most of the backlinks in the supplemental index.