300 inbound links are not very many...I have around 2669 according to iwebtool...The authority of the site means a lot - 500 links from page rank 0 is about the same as 1 from a page rank 5 site...

I would check the SEO of your site - are important things as h2 and in bold? How are your keywords? Look at that site and see what they are doing differently and how you can try to get ahead of them for optimization.

You should also strive for anchor text links. Good luck!

Google would gladly choose 1 authority link than a bunch of low quality links.

You don't see all the links. Just because you don't see the links it doesn't mean that there are no sites link to the site. Also, it is not just the number of links but the quality of the links that matter.

[quote=realyte]You don't see all the links. Just because you don't see the links it doesn't mean that there are no sites link to the site.[/quote]

That is very true, but this was back in 208 and there weren't as many tools available then, nor were they of the same capabilities as those available now, and we don't know what the OP was using. Having said that, it have tried some recently which show little or none for my own site whereas I actually have thousands, so maybe in some cases things haven't really progressed.

How else is a tool going to search for all backlinks to a site but by using a search engine? A search engine, like Google (or Bing) has the resources and power to index millions and billions of webpages.

Unless a particular tool has been indexing their own web engine, the tool will be forced to use a preexisting index, most likely Google.

If that is the case, then they will be limited to what a search engine is willing to reveal about their indexing methods, which will not me much. If, let's say Google, were to give you an accurate measure of all backlinks to your site, then they'd be compromising the integrity of their algorhythm(s).

The very basic answer to the OP is that Google values the other site as more authoritative (content & value of links) on that particular keyword term.

Doug, very well put and I believe the stigma of outbound links is one reason why webmasters are not taking full advantage of comment systems on their sites. Take a look at seomoz.org and how their "members" consistently comment and rate every post that their authors write (although seomoz doesn't allow outbound links). If webmasters were more open to allowing outbound links for quality comments, these sites would rank much better with the appropriate control.

It is not the stigma, it is the work involved in moderating the spam that forces most webmasters to turn off comments. If you allow links in your comments you will be overloaded with spam.

If your competitors are ranking higher than you, try improving your site's social markers. Google (post-Panda) is now placing increasing emphasis on improving search rankings for those sites offering the best user experience. Facebook Fan pages and Twitter are two examples.