Linkbait outranks actual target page?
-
Interesting dilemma I've run into. Working in an extremely boring B2B space and started making some quality content to grab some .edu links. Well, it worked. Let's put it this way, our target keyword is "{keyword} services" and we pulled in so many .edu links the resource page which is an educational resource with our target keyword in it, has now surpassed every commercial site and ranks second. The problem is, the page doesn't have much in the way of services on it, it's strictly educational and targets a different audience than our customer. The home page, our desired landing page, jumps back and forth between third and twelfth depending on the week.
Any thoughts on how to make these flip flop? We're getting a ton of traffic to the wrong page and bouncing most of them at the moment.
-
should have mentioned we already have done this. thanks for the head's up, though.
-
The guys @dejanseo mentioned this via Twitter:
link to money page with a contextual kw anchor text from the juiced up page.
-
First to clarify:
Is the link bait on the same domain?
It sounds like the PA (page authority) of the link bait page is higher than that of the domain's home page. My suggestion would be:
- Try to redesign the home page to incorporate the link bait, even if it's at the bottom of the home page.
- Then 301 the linkbait page to the home page
-
Why add the content to the home page?
-
So that Google doesn't penalize you for not having the content your users wanted. If you link without duplicating the content it's grey hat.
SEO Moz was using this tactic back in 2006ish when Matt Inman worked at SEO Moz. They called it the "Link Bait and Switch"
-
So is this a page on your domain that is ranking ? Just making sure. So it's the wrong page ranking for the right keyword ? If yes, does it make sense to add a canonical tag on this wrong page to the right page, which is like a 301 and that should do it. The question is whether it makes sense in your case. Was this all naturally done...was it like a linkbait or an info graphic or a widget kind of something that brought these links ? Once you have these answers, you should be able to act on whether it's okay to do the canonical change. Let me low if that helps.
-
Reoptimize for a different keyword.
Then your desired page will rank at 12th or maybe 10th.
That is my prediction.
Instead of viewing this as a "problem" maybe you could figure out a way to get traffic from that #3 page into your desired page. If people don't want what is on that page it should be easy to funnel them to another page on your site. Now you have success.
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
-
New page not topping on results
Hi, We have created a new page on our website for same keyword in slug but the page is not showing up for same keyword even combined with website name: website.com/keyword is new page and not listing on top of results for exact search query "website keyword". This page is listing as 3rd result and other pages are making on top even they don't match with page title, h1 tags and URL. This new page is indexed. How long it'll take to Google to adopt this? I don't think it'll remain same forever. Is there anything we can do from our end?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
New page not being picked up
Hello, We have created a new page for truck rentals but for some reason it does not seem to be picked up. See this report: http://screencast.com/t/npYqeoa5gq The page is: https://www.globecar.com/en/montreal-truck-rentals but our main site is being pickedup instead vs the competition that has their truck page showing up. Can anyone help me understand? Thanks, Karim
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GlobeCar1 -
Possible to Improve Domain Authority By Improving Content on Low Page Rank Pages?
My sites domain authority is only 23. The home page has a page authority of 32. My site consists of about 400 pages. The topic of the site is commercial real estate (I am a real estate broker). A number of the sites we compete against have a domain authority of 30-40. Would our overall domain authority improved if we re-wrote the content for several hundred of pages that had the lowest page authority (say 12-15)? Is the overall domain authority derived by an average of the page authority of each page on a domain? Alternatively could we increase domain authority by setting the pages with the lowest page authority to "no index". By the way our domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Drop in indexed pages!
Hi everybody! I've been working on http://thewilddeckcompany.co.uk/ for a little while now. Until recently, everything was great - good rankings for the key terms of 'bird hides' and 'pond dipping platforms'. However, rankings have tanked over the past few days. I can't point my finger at it yet, but a site:thewilddeckcompany.co.uk search shows only three pages have been indexed. There's only 10 on the site, and it was fine beforehand. Any advice would be much appreciated,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blink-SEO0 -
My landing page changed in google's serp. I used to have a product page now I have a pdf?
I have been optimizing this page for a few weeks now and and have seen our page for up from 23rd to 11th on the serp's. I come to work today and not only have I dropped to 15 but I've also had my relevant product page replaced by this page . Not to mention the second page is a pdf! I am not sure what happened here but any advice on how I could fix this would be great. My site is www.mynaturalmarket.com and the keyword I'm working on is Zyflamend.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KenyonManu3-SEOSEM0 -
Should I block temporary pages
I need some SEO advice on an odd scenario: We are launching a new product line (party supplies) on it's own domain (PartySuperCenter.com). Due to some internal/technical reasons we will not be able to launch the site until the summer. We already have the product in our warehouse so the owners want to created a section on our current site (CostumeSuperCenter.com) for the new products. Once the new site is up the product will be removed from our current site and moved to the new site. I am concerned about the effect this will have on our SEO - having thousands of product pages appear and then disappear after a few months. I was thinking about blocking the pages using the "noindex" tag. Is this how you would handle it? Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | costume0 -
Remove Landing Pages?
Howdy Guys, I've just been listening to the latest edition of whiteboard Friday regarding the over-optimization penalty. I'm just wondering if we should remove alot of make specifc landing pages... For instance we have a landing pages for our top 20 cars... For instance "bmw keyword" or "audi keyword" What do you guys think? remove them and 301 the pages to the homepage? Thanks, Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
Category Pages in competition with Homepages
I am finding it a real uphill task with a few of our clients with there either product or category pages competing against other sites on main keywords. The sites either categories or product specific pages are in direct competition with other sites homepages and I am finding it increasingly more difficult to break into positions. What are other peoples experiences with this ? Do you feel the way the pages are ranked within the xml sitemap with priority could also be a factor.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0