Wow, disappointing response there, Webnauts. :(

The guy's question is fair enough. His site, with link popularity has dropped below sites with far fewer IBLs. In that situation I doubt I'd be happy just to sit back and be grateful that I didn't get dumped altogether.

balinese, it may be possible for sites to outrank you with fewer backlinks if, for example, most of your IBLs are low quality - mostly free directories, unrelated reciprocals, paid links in "Sponsored links" columns and links at the bottom of pages with 200 other links on them.

If your competitors have a bunch of one way links from high PR, closely related "authority" and trusted sites, on pages with few outbound links, they could easily trump your link volume.

The other thing to realise is that to rank for specific keywords it is good to have helpful text in the link anchors. If all your IBLs simply have your URL as the anchor text, for example, you are not getting the maximum benefit from them when it comes to your rankings for specific keywords.