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.
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
-
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches.
How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE?
Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
-
Hi Derek,
I have had a look at the backlink profiles of both sites. While yours is certainly much better than theirs in terms of number and quality of links - keep building links. 400 or so inbound links isn't a huge number. I suggest getting some high quality links from places like BBB.org (paid) or http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow (free).
Now - looking at your on site analysis, you do pretty well for trophy terms like 'Bee Removal' - however I'm going to look at another term it seems you want to rank well for - 'San Diego Bee Removal'.
You're getting an F for this according to SEOmoz's on page reports. That term is not used anywhere on the page, in the title, in alt image tags, in a H1 tag or in bold/strong. Yes, you are trying to rank for it on this page - http://www.propacificbee.com/bee-removal-san-diego-bee-control.php - but if this is indeed one of your trophy terms (as I guess it would be by looking at your site) - why not try and rank for your homepage?
All those sub pages you have for different areas (Allied Gardens, Alpine, Bonita etc) should have more unique content too - there are way too many pages with VERY similar content. Google is going to frown upon this.
Hope this helps,
Brad
-
Well bing doesn't crawl and index as much as google ...maybe they're even blocking Bingbot. It's not unheard of.
-
my URL is ________________________
Competitor site is __________________
-
I thought there might be a way to block some link explorer bots but wasn't sure. Thank you for verifying that.
I was able to find a few more links on Bing's Link Explorer but still no substantial links.
-
Some blackhats/greyhats make it a point to block Mozbot, Majestic and other crawlers from their private networks. That prevents links from appearing in competitive reports.
So try using Bing's Link Explorer given that they usually allow Bingbot and Googlebot to crawl.
-
Don't be afraid to post the URL of your site and their site - it would help us to better understand the situation.
-
I didn't think on-page optimization would put you above a site with decent on-page optimization and a better link profile - but maybe it does.
They don't have any social profiles so social signals can't be a contributor to their high ranking.
-
I tried some other site explorers. There were a couple links that were shown on Majestic but not on OSE. None of the linkbacks seemed to be of any quality.
-
I dedicate one of my browsers for checking rankings and I never sign in, so it should be a pretty accurate SERP.
The content has remained the same since I have been tracking them. The only difference with their content and other competing sites is they have the exact-match keyword listed multiple times throughout the site. However, it looks and reads very unnatural.
-
Why don't you run SEOMoz's keyword competitiveness tools to get an idea of what makes them better. Also, take a look at some competitor data sets like Majestic and AHrefs - I always start with SEOMoz, but there is no reason to limit yourself to 1 data set. Chances are they have a bunch more spammy links that you aren't yet seeing, and those are giving them the lift.
-
The first thing that comes to mind, is how are you looking at the SERPS. You're not logged in are you? Clicking on a link while you're into your Google account will change the placing of it, as Google is always trying to recommend/localize your results. The best way to view the SERPs is in Incognito mode though that often doesn't always work.
If you are viewing the Competitor in Incognito and have seem him climb up, I would wonder if the links that he has passed have been affected by Panda or Penguin.
Yeah, I would also agree with AK, and take a look at the on-page optimization of the competitor. Has their on page optimization or content changed any?
-
You must remember that rankings don't only rely on back links. there are many factors like content, social signals & on page optimization to name the bigger players.
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
-
Huge difference between GSC ranking and browser ranking for certain keywords: How to proceed?
Hi, There is a huge ranking difference between the GSC and browser for our primary keyword. As per GSC, our ranking is around 15 and when checking on the multiple different incognito browsers it's around 50. How to handle this? Which is the accurate one? Product expert from Google forums claim that what I see on browsers are the personalized results; but I tried on different browsers with different connections. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | Dec 31, 2019, 4:37 AM | vtmoz0 -
About porn sites and ranking
Hello, I'm thinking to extend my website into porn. At the moment there is no pornography on it, although we do talk about sex related topics and products (from dating to tutorials, to toys etc.) Would it be dangerous to keep the porn section on the same domain as the rest? Would this negatively affect my non-porn content as Googlebot would "flag" my website as being pornographic (although only a few pages would be)? Or simply Googlebot would leave the current non-porn pages ranking as they are now, just fine, and plus it would rank the porn pages if they "deserve" to? I hope my question is clear. I don't want to create a subdomain.
Algorithm Updates | Dec 6, 2019, 5:31 AM | fabx0 -
Dramatic drop in SEO rankings after recovering from hacking
A few months ago my client's website was hacked which created over 20,000+ spammy links on the site. I dealt with removing the malware and got google to remove the malware warning shortly within a week of the hacking. Then started the long process to do 301 redirects and disavowing links under Webmaster tools over these few months. The hacking only caused a slight drop in rankings at the time. Now just as of last week the site had a dramatic drop in rankings. When doing a keyword search I noticed the homepage doesn't even get listed on Google Maps and for Google Search instead the inner pages like the Contact Us page show up instead of the homepage. Does anyone have any insight to the sudden drop happening now and why the inner pages are ranking higher than the homepage now?
Algorithm Updates | Feb 15, 2017, 2:39 PM | FPK0 -
Medical Marijuana Keywords
Has anyone seen any evidence of Google penalizing for Medical Marijuana related keywords in states where that is legal? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | Feb 7, 2015, 8:33 AM | eocreative0 -
Your search - site:domain.com - did not match any documents.
I've recently started work on a new clients website and done some preliminary work with on-page optimisation, and there is still plenty of work to be done and issues to resolve. They are ranking ok on Bing, but they are not getting any ranking on Google at all (except paid) - I tried the site:domain.com search and comes up with no results... so this confirms that something is going on with the google search rank! Can anyone shed light on what can cause this or why this would happen? My next step is to look at their webmaster tools (haven't had access yet), but if anyone has any tips to resolve this or where to look, that would be great! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | Aug 7, 2014, 7:34 AM | ElevateCreativeAU0 -
Will Parked Domain hurt My SEO as Duplicate Content?
Hello, I have one website (Migration Lawyers) and I have an extra 8 domains Parked so they are basically cloning the content of the site. so if the main site is: migrationlawyers.co.za and I have an addon domain migration-lawyers.com is that good or bad? is there a proper way to redirect the sites, will redirecting (301) subdomains be more effective? Thanks for your Input 🙂 0i8VXqr.png
Algorithm Updates | May 8, 2013, 9:22 AM | thealika0 -
Decline in traffic but no change in rankings
I'm comparing our best search traffic month in 2011 (March) with our current traffic (April)and have seen significant declines in traffic, despite no change in our rankings or even improved rankings for the same terms. Trying to sort out an explanation. We have been a white-hat SEO site since our inception over 10 years ago. Our SEO consultant doesn't think we've been affected by any algo changes, at least not to any significant degree. My only explanation for this possibly anomaly is: decrease in the use of the KW terms in search over time (how to determine?) generalized increase in PPC instead of organic search driving traffic possibility that Adv Web Rankings is no longer accurately collecting SERP rankings Does anyone have any other thoughts or considerations that might explain the decline in traffic, despite maintenance or improvement in rankings? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | May 4, 2012, 6:55 PM | ahw0 -
Plural vs non-plural domain name
I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | Feb 13, 2012, 3:59 PM | ydop0