Dealing with a category page that is optimised & ranks for same keyword as homepage
-
Hi,
I'm working with a very niche website where only one product is sold. This means there is a small keyword set (just variations of same keyword) that we are optimising for.
Currently the homepage www.example.com ranks in position 2 for target term - "sample". But there is also a required deeper page www.example.com/sample which has lots and lots of internal links targeted to "sample" pointing to it. This page ranks position 8. Effectively this is optimising the deeper page for the same keyword as for the home page through internal anchir text. This deeper page must exist as it has much more detailed information about the product.
We want the homepage to rank highest and I'm trying to figure out if we are confusing Google and splitting authority between 2 pages. Best result for us would be to have homepage in position 1 and the deeper page can disappear (total visits would increase).
So the question is, is there a solution to do this? My initial thought was use canonical tag on the www.example.com/sample page specifiying www.example.com. Can we do this? Its not duplicate content.
Other option I considered is to nofollow links to the deeper page. Again not sure if this will have positive or negative impact. My fear is by removing 40 odd internal links with "sample" anchor text will reduce relevancy of the domain as a whole for the "sample" keyword.
Any help much appreciated!
Thanks
-
If I owned this site I would figure out how to accomplish my goals for ANY traffic that flows into this internal page and roll out a big WELCOME sign on that page.... This is where you can buy widgets!
I would want to take in money with BOTH hands rather than just one.
-
Deeper pages that rank help lift the authority of the main URL/domain. (Think like a pyramid; the more "voted" content you have on your site, the better.) Obviously for you, links to your main URL (which can often be the easiest to get) should be manageable for you to achieve. Good luck!
-
Hi Andrea,
Thanks for your detailed reply, the problem is not really that this deeper page ranks. Its whether I can leverage the authority this deeper page holds to push the homepage to position 1.
We are about to set a new linkbuilding campaign once we have figured this out, as I want to make sure we have nothing working against us within the site before starting on this.
Thanks again for your help
-
Google sometimes will do this if it thinks that the deeper page (in this case) is a more relevant to the search query. And, optimizing is merely a way to indicate to Google what you want them to think a page is about; there's no promise that Google will agree.
Even with a small website, something outside of the homepage will rank - Google will crawl the site and offer up additional pages to searchers if they think there's good content there, regardless if you intentionally optimized said page or not. Trying to block out all the other pages isn't necessarily the best strategy. Rather than look at how your other pages work against you, look at how they can work for you. If you didn't put a no index tag on the page and it's already ranking, that's not a solution that works best for after the fact (but something to keep in mind as the site grows).
Sounds like part of the problem is that even with a few pages you cannibalized by trying to only use one keyword/variation. Even if the content isn't 100% the same, Google can interpret it as similar enough. Dr Pete did an excellent blog that may be able to offer some insight. I'll preface that he wrote about duplicate content, however it goes through when to use things like canonicals (not something that fits your case) so it may be helpful to at least read up and confirm what won't fix it: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/duplicate-content-in-a-post-panda-world (he specifically mentions how canonicalizing your site to one URL can do lots of damage).
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
-
Will including "Contact Me" form degrade Google page ranking?
I have a content-rich page about one of my offerings. Will Google knock down the ranking if I include a contact me reply form on the page vs including a link to a standalone reply page? My concern is that including the form will cause Google to downgrade the page as being "too commercial".
On-Page Optimization | | Lysarden0 -
Should I utilize URL re-writes to include keywords and other optimised page elements on my website?
Hi there, I am working on a medical recruitment website: https://wave.com.au/ I have noticed that our Job Search and Job Listings section of the website is lacking a little bit in terms of SEO optimisation. For example, at the moment this is our search page (with locum work type selected): https://wave.com.au/search-locum/results If you add a location, for example, NSW and then click search again, it updates the URL to: https://wave.com.au/search-locum/results?LocumSearchForm_Location[]=NSW&action_doSearch=Search+jobs I did a check what some competitors and leaders in the recruitment industry were doing and I came across: https://www.ochrerecruitment.com.au/jobs/anaesthetics/new-south-wales/locum/ If you click the different filters/options, it updates the URL to include more clearly defined categories. Some websites would even have a H1 heading tag that would update based on the filters/options you selected. Should I set up a set of URL re-writes and re-structure my website a little bit so that dynamic URLs change to static etc.? Does anyone have any best practice knowledge in regards to this? I have been referencing the following article: https://moz.com/blog/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls-the-best-practice-for-seo-is-still-clear
On-Page Optimization | | Wavelength_International0 -
Which is better? One dynamically optimised page, or lots of optimised pages?
For the purpose of simplicity, we have 5 main categories in the site - let's call them A, B, C, D, E. Each of these categories have sub-category pages e.g. A1, A2, A3. The main area of the site consists of these category and sub-category pages. But as each product comes in different woods, it's useful for customers to see all the product that come in a particular wood, e.g. walnut. So many years ago we created 'woods' pages. These pages replicate the categories & sub-categories but only show what is available in that particular wood. And of course - they're optimised much better for that wood. All well and good, until recently, these specialist page seem to have dropped through the floor in Google. Could be temporary, I don't know, and it's only a fortnight - but I'm worried. Now, because the site is dynamic, we could do things differently. We could still have landing pages for each wood, but of spinning off to their own optimised specific wood sub-category page, they could instead link to the primary sub-category page with a ?search filter in the URL. This way, the customer is still getting to see what they want. Which is better? One page per sub-category? Dynamically filtered by search. Or lots of specific sub-category pages? I guess at the heart of this question is? Does having lots of specific sub-category pages lead to a large overlap of duplicate content, and is it better keeping that authority juice on a single page? Even if the URL changes (with a query in the URL) to enable whatever filtering we need to do.
On-Page Optimization | | pulcinella2uk0 -
If Two Internal Pages Rank for a Given Keyword, Are They Competing?
Let's say I'm a house painter working out of offices in Boston and Springfield. When I search for "Boston house painter" or "Massachusetts house painter," both my homepage and my Boston office page come up #8 and #9. That's good, sorta (2 results on first page), but I'd trade that scenario for a single result in the top 3. How likely is it that these two page are competing? If I removed the Boston page, would the homepage rank better? Or should I be happy I have two pages turning up the the first SERP? Any thoughts here appreciated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | wparsons0 -
Why is this page not ranking?
Can you please tell me why this page is not ranking. http://goo.gl/BqoRT The page doesn't rank at all for keywords but even if I copy a line or 2 of text it still doesn't rank for that text. Any help will be much appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | JillB20130 -
Exstinguishing Page Rank?
Hi Guys, Here is a thought. Google gives more weight to links in content, less to navigation etc.. Therefore if they say give 50% of a pages rank to a link within content and 50% to the the other elements. What happens to the total pagerank from a page if you have not utilized in page content links? (is it lost) If this is the case, and you have a site that does not use content links on every page, are you loosing value (and hard earned) pagerank. Google did mention sometime back about pagerank being exstinguished with the nofollow tag. I would be interested to hear what others think? Cheers Scott
On-Page Optimization | | Jurnii0 -
Advice on why page isn't being indexed in google top 1000 for keyword
Hi, http://www.cgcomposites.com.au/composite-material.html This page isn't listed for keywords 'composite material' It has been live for a few weeks and gets grade A report for onpage optimisation? regards Michael
On-Page Optimization | | bluelilyseo0 -
Google Page Rank of my site has dropped from 4/10 to 3/10
Google Page rank of my website has been dropped after Panda Update. Can anyone help me out to tell me the possible reasons about the same. We have tried to make our website more lively and user friendly. We have indulged some graphics to make it more attractive. But it seems it backfired us. my site is http://www.myrealdata.com as well as Google page ranking of my Quickbooks hosting page has been dropped as well. It would be great if someone can help me out with expert suggestions.
On-Page Optimization | | SangeetaC1