Page hidden in SERPs

[loopyal]

As well as unique content, we carry press releases (contracts with PR companies)

Some pages don't show up in SERPs - but sometimes a few or even hundreds of other sites do.

At the end of the search, google shows this:

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 109 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

When the search is repeated, using that link, the page often shows up in the top 10 or top 20.

I believe this is a site problem, not a page problem.

We are often one of the first to publish the release.

[loopyal]

Thank you Kane.

Yes we are hosting them.

We've been doing that since 2005.

We do that for business readers.

What google is ging now, is showing the front page of our site in results, or index pages. But those are useless for searchers, because by the time they find them, they have probably gone off the index page and they are back a page or two from there.

I have never understood why google would choose to display an index page - on any site - rather than show the page with the whole content. It didn't make any sense to me in 2005 and it still doesn't.

Often, if you go to the end of the search and redo it, with the missing results shown, the story page shows up, above the index page that was displayed.

I just watched a story come in. within 1 minute, it was in google, from 1 other site and the originator. Within 2 more minutes, our front page was there, but not the story page. Within 3 minutes, the story page was in the index, but hidden. Then many more came in from other sites. After 15 more minutes, our index page was ranked 10. The story that came out first on another site was ranked 11 - and now their page is hidden too.

[KaneJamison]

After seeing your actual domain, I see what's going on - you're hosting the press release content, I though you were the company releasing the press releases.

This is a clear cut case of duplicate content. You have great domain authority in the 80s, but you're pitting exact duplicate content against the likes of Bloomberg.com (DA 100), CNBC.com (DA 93), and Yahoo Finance (DA 100). Unfortunately, they're going to win that contest every time, UNLESS you can find a way to make your content more unique, such as adding relevant content to each press release in a useful way.

Frankly, that's going to be hard to implement well on an automatic basis. Unless the press release companies are paying you well to host all of this content, or it's somehow valuable to your other readers, I'd say it might be hurting more than helping. I'd even be worried about Panda effects from hosting that much duplicate content. Can you track your traffic drop off to a specific day in your analytics software? That might help pinpoint if you are indeed being penalized.

All of that said, I don't typically work with larger news sites hosting that much content, so there could be other ways to leverage that content that I'm not aware of.

[loopyal]

Thank you Kane.

We have contracts with all of those press release companies - have had most of them since 2005.

I actually deleted 1.5 million of them about 4-8 months ago - because we didn't get any traffic on them in the past year.

Some of the people who put out the press releases link to them at NewsBlaze.

When I do that search for some of them, google doesn't list us (they used to - for every single one, and we used to rank in the top 10, - sometimes even above much more powerful sites - we didn't do anything to make that happen, it just did.

Sometimes, even if we are first to publish one of them(after the PR company) they don't list us, but they list other sites that came after us, even sites that are crap. Even sites that take just a snippet and then link to us or any of the other sites.

If it is solely because it is similar to other content, why does google sometimes list dozens to hundreds of other sites, but push us into "supplementaries" or whatever they are called now? - especially when we are first with them. That part of the system is automated, as are all the other sites, but we are usually within 1-2 minutes of them being published by Buinesswire, PRnewswire etc.

We used to get 20,000 readers per day from google. Now it is 3,500 per day. It is like a cap.

[KaneJamison]

Sounds like you're getting bounced from the SERPs because your content is very similar to other content.

I clicked on the link in your question, not sure if you put it there on purpose or accidentally. Frankly, the reason all of those press release sites like Yahoo Finance and CNBC and Bloomberg.com are ranking ahead of your main domain for the exact term is because they are way more important sites.

If I'm correct that you're wondering why Y_ _ _Companies.com isn't ranking at the top for the exact search term used in the Press Release, don't worry about that, that's not the goal of a press release.

Your site is ranking for the exact name of your company, which is good, and it's getting links from all of those press release re-listings, which is also great.

Content stricken out is not relevant to question, see below

Not sure if that gets to the heart of what you were trying to ask, let me know if not.