Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Was moving up in SERPS then Got Stuck on Page 2
-
Hi,
I was continuously acquiring quality back-links and my site was moving up in Google SERPS for 3 main keywords. Within a few weeks i was on Page 2 and 3 for these three keywords, but after reaching there I got stuck on these pages and positions despite no change in link building strategy / pattern. I have even increased the number and quality of links that I acquire per day, but I am still stuck at exact same positions.
The website is10 months old and related to a software niche. I update this website once a week.
For one keyword I am stuck at position 1 of page two (you can well imagine the frustration..!!).
My question is that what do I need to do to get out of this "SERP lock"?
-
Thanks all for the answers.
Yes EGOL, It looks like I need to do the Jolt (rate of change of acceleration) rather than just acceleration or speed as I am up against entities having $10b+ market cap(s). These guys love to mop the serp floor using small competition.
Are there any other factors you guys consider relevant in off-page SEO, in addition to rate of increase of links/day and quality/relevance of links?
-
Hi,
This is a great question and many people find themselves right where you are. Both Ryan and Egol have provided you some great responses and I agree with them both. There is a lot that goes into whether and when your site will move up or down. Personally, I feel the closer you get to page 1 the more fine tuning and possibly effort it will take to make the leap to the top of page one.
Sounds like you are doing pretty well for a very young site. Good job and good luck!
-
Did you take physics in high school or college?
Your question is similar to..... "What is the difference between speed and acceleration?"
Just because you are "continuously acquiring quality back-links" doesn't mean that your competitors are sitting on their butts.
If you are gaining ten links per day but the guy above you is gaining twenty you will never ever catch him....
.... and if he is on the third page then the guys near the top of page two might be gaining hundreds per day.
Every time you move up a position in the SERPs the website directly above you will require a greater level of effort to defeat.
That means you gotta press the accelerator down harder and harder as you move up the SERPs. Will you have it floored before you reach the top of page two?
In lightly competitive SERPs you might be able to defeat everyone... but when you get into the heavyweight SERPs the increasing competition will at some point be more than most people can muster.
That's where you hit "SERP lock" as you call it.
Keep in mind that the people behind you are working hard too..... you might tramp the pedal to the floor and see people from behind passing you buy.
My personal opinion is... more people who hold any SERPs today will be lower in the rankings than will be more highly ranked by this time next year. Really. They are going to be displaced by existing heavyweights who are expanding their reach and new heavyweights who are starting to accelerate.
Pick ten SERPs in different niches that interest you and record who is in position #5. Then come back in a year and look for them. More will go down than up.
-
what do I need to do to get out of this "SERP lock"?
Without looking at the site and the keywords involved, we can only offer generic advice.
I would suggest examining all aspects of your onpage factors. Some specifics are:
-
page title: focus a single keyword
-
header: focus the same keyword
-
content: the first sentence of your content should also focus the same keyword
-
site internal linking: when appropriate, other pages of your site should provide links in content to other relevant pages.
-
url: clean, friendly, static urls which offer appropriate use of keywords is helpful
Wikipedia is a great example for many of the above steps.
There are other items to check. My point is link building and site promotion is an ongoing process which happens over months and years. On page changes have the ability to instantly and dramatically change your ranking. There is a good chance you are stuck due to onpage factors.
-
-
Could you let us know the URL and the keywords you're targeting?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
If a page ranks in the wrong country and is redirected, does that problem pass to the new page?
Hi guys, I'm having a weird problem: A new multilingual site was launched about 2 months ago. It has correct hreflang tags and Geo targetting in GSC for every language version. We redirected some relevant pages (with good PA) from another website of our client's. It turned out that the pages were not ranking in the correct country markets (for example, the en-gb page ranking in the USA). The pages from our site seem to have the same problem. Do you think they inherited it due to the redirects? Is it possible that Google will sort things out over some time, given the fact that the new pages have correct hreflangs? Is there stuff we could do to help ranking in the correct country markets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ParisChildress1 -
Which of these examples are doorway pages?
Hi there, I am soon to launch a new platform/directory website, however, have a concern over doorway pages. I have read many articles on the difference between Doorway and Landing pages and do have a good understanding, however, am still very anxious that what I intend to do will be risking Google penalties. I have looked at other directory/platform websites and have noticed that a lot of them are still using doorway pages and are not getting penalised. So I was wondering if someone wouldn't mind kindly letting me know their opinion on which of the following examples are doorway pages and which are not so I can better understand what I can and cannot do? Example 1: When I Google 'piano lessons new york' and 'trumpet lessons new york' I get the following 'landing pages' in search: https://takelessons.com/new-york/piano-lessons https://takelessons.com/new-york/trumpet-lessons To me, the above pages are definitely doorway pages as they are very similar with content and text and are simply an intermediary step between the Google search and their listings pages for piano/trumpet teachers in New York. Is this correct? Example 2: When I Google 'piano lessons Sydney' I get presented with the following web page in search: http://www.musicteacher.com.au/directory/sydney-nsw/lessons/piano/ I would think that this is NOT a doorway page as the user has been taken directly to the search results page in the directory and the page doesn't seem to have been set up for the sole purpose of listing in search results for 'Piano Lessons in Sydney'. Example 3: When I Google 'pet minding Sydney' I get presented with the following two pages in search: https://www.madpaws.com.au/petsitters/Sydney-New-South-Wales?type=night&service=1&from=0&to=99&city=Sydney&state=New-South-Wales https://www.pawshake.com.au/petsitters/Sydney%252C%2520New%2520South%2520Wales%252C%2520Australia Like Example 2, I don't think these pages would be classified as doorway pages as they too direct to the search results page in the site directory instead of an intermediary page. What do you think? Thanks so much in advance for your expertise and help! Kind Regards, Adrian
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Amor20050 -
Hreflang and paginated page
Hi, I can not seem to find good documentation about the use of hreflang and paginated page when using rel=next , rel=prev
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TjeerdvZ
Does any know where to find decent documentatio?, I could only find documentation about pagination and hreflang when using canonicals on the paginated page. I have doubts on what is the best option: The way tripadvisor does it:
http://www.tripadvisor.nl/Hotels-g187139-oa390-Corsica-Hotels.html
Each paginated page is referring to it's hreflang paginated page, for example: So should the hreflang refer to the pagined specific page or should it refer to the "1st" page? in this case:
http://www.tripadvisor.nl/Hotels-g187139-Corsica-Hotels.html Looking foward to your suggestions.0 -
Is it a problem to use a 301 redirect to a 404 error page, instead of serving directly a 404 page?
We are building URLs dynamically with apache rewrite.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
When we detect that an URL is matching some valid patterns, we serve a script which then may detect that the combination of parameters in the URL does not exist. If this happens we produce a 301 redirect to another URL which serves a 404 error page, So my doubt is the following: Do I have to worry about not serving directly an 404, but redirecting (301) to a 404 page? Will this lead to the erroneous original URL staying longer in the google index than if I would serve directly a 404? Some context. It is a site with about 200.000 web pages and we have currently 90.000 404 errors reported in webmaster tools (even though only 600 detected last month).0 -
How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?
Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fabioricotta-840380 -
Why does Google add my domain as a suffix to page title in SERPS?
Hi, If I do a search in Google - for one our products on our site, our site comes up - but it would appear that google is adding our domain name as a suffix to our title in the results... Anyone else seen this? Can I do anything about it? I would prefer it not to appear. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
Stuck on Page 2 - What Would You Do?!?
My site is : http://goo.gl/JgK1e My main keyword is : Plastic Bins i have been going back and forth between page 1 and 2 for this keyword and i was wondering if any of you could provide any guidance as to why i can't get on the top of page 1, and stay there... My site has been around for a while, we believe we have a great user experience, all unique, fresh content, and the lowest prices... I must be missing out on something major if I cannot get a steady page 1 ranking... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850