Problem appearing 1 st with a sub page when typing my company name and product
-
I just did a test typing my company name followed by what I sell
Let's say "company green widgets "I noticed that my webpage ( which is a subpage ) doesn't appear 1 st on google when i type that keyword....
Either some website that talks about my product appears or my homepage appears.
Why is that ?
Could it be a canonicalization issue ?
Thank you,
-
Imagine that one of the keywords your homepage ranks for is your brand name. If you look for some of your services (subpage) and you make a search using a keyword containing a branded keyword within, probably your first result is your homepage.
Your homepage would be ranking for this branded keyword very well. Moreover, if your homepage has a lot of backlinks using your branded keyword as anchor text, then, making a search for finding a subpage using your branded keyword is a bad idea, as your homepage is ranking better than any other subpage in your site.
Hope to be helpful.
-
That's a really vague question. Really it could be absolutely anything. However you have 2 different issues:
1 - Someone else is out ranking you
2 - Your expected page is not appearing
Answering "Why is another site outranking mine" without knowing the URLs is impossible. Their page might be better optimised, they might just have more authority. I'd focus on the other question first, then come back to this if solving #2 doesn't fix this as well.
Question 2 is "Why is my sub page ranking above my homepage for that specific term". Again, this is hard to answer without seeing it. However, assuming that the page is at least indexed, I'd be looking for issues such as:
- How good is the onpage optimisation of the home page?
- Is that page well linked internally?
- Does that page have unique (and preferably valuable) content?
- Does that page have any external links?
- Are you cannibalising your own rankings by repeating the terms you are targeting across both the home page and sub-page.
Answer those questions and you will probably be on the right track. Solving this, and getting that sub-page performing better, may well deal with the competitor issue at the same time.
Before you rush off and look at all of that though, I have one more question: Do you need to rank #1 for that term? Depending on how well established you company is the answer may well be yes. However for many companies the answer would be no. Your analytics will have the answer - are people searching that phrase.
Sorry if that last bit sounds obvious/daft - but it's an important point. Lots of people chase listings that will never benefit them.
-
It would be helpful to indicate your URL and company name in order to evaluate this problem.
It's difficult to answer without data, but my first impression is that you can have a problem with title optimization. Does it contain that keyword? And your company name? How long is your title?
Please, send your URL for more accurate answers.
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
-
Link equity when merging product pages
Hi, our e-commerce website has just over 900 products. A vast majority are very unique and not similar to one another. However, early in our development, we listed similar variations separately. For example, we had a separate product listing for different color options: Black, Tan, and Green. They do not rank too great by themselves. However, the product is very popular and the search volume is near 9k a month. Our competitors have one listing with several color options, which is what we are proposing. We would enable 301 redirects from the Tan and Green options, which would redirect to the new variation listing. Is this wise? We want to capitalize on this opportunity, and apply this practice for other product listings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndrewColvin0 -
Pillar pages and blog pages
Hello, I was watching this video about pillar pages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db3TpDZf_to and tried to apply it to my self but find it impossible to do (but maybe I am looking at it the wrong way). Let's say I want to rank on "Normandy bike tou"r. I created a pillar page about "Normandy bike tour" what would be the topics of the subpages boosting that pillar page. I know that it should be questions people have but in the tourism industry they don't have any, they just want us to make them dream !! I though about doing more general blog pages about things such as : Places to rent a bike in Normandy or in XYZ city ? ( related to biking) Or the landing sites in Normandy ? (not related to biking) Is it the way to do it, what do you recommend ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
HELP! How do I get Google to value one page over another (older) page that is ranking?
So I have a tactical question and I need mozzers. I'll use widgets as an example: 1- My company used to sell widgets exclusively and we built thousands of useful, branded unique pages that sell widgets. We have thousands of pages that are ranking for widgets.com/brand-widgets-for-sale. (These pages have been live for almost 2 years) 2- We've shifted our focus to now renting widgets. We have about 100 pages focused on renting the same branded widgets. These pages have unique content and photos and can be found at widgets.com/brand-widgets-for-rent. (These pages have been live for about 2-3 months) The problem is that when someone searches just for the brand name, the "for sale" pages dramatically outrank the "for rent" pages. Instead, I want them to find the "for rent" page. I don't want to redirect traffic from the "for sale" pages because someone might still be interested in buying (although as a company, we are super focused on renting). Solutions? "nofollow" the "for sale" pages with the idea that Google will stop indexing "for sale" and start valuing "for rent" over it? Remove "for sale" from sitemap. Help!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vacatia_SEO0 -
Show parts of page A on page B & C?
Good afternoon,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft
A quick question. I am working on a website which has a large page with different sections. Lets say: Page 1
SECTION A
SECTION B
SECTION C Now, they are adding a new area where they want to show only certain sections, so it would look like this: Page 2
SECTION A Page 3
SECTION C Page 4
SECTION D So my question is, would a rel='canonical' tag back to Page 1 be the correct way of preempting any duplicate content issues? I do not need Page 2-4 to even be indexed, it is just a matter of usability and giving the users what they are looking for without all the rest of the extra stuff. Gracias. Tesekürler. Salamat Ko. Thanks. (bonus thumbs up for anybody who knows which languages each of those are) 🙂0 -
"No index" page still shows in search results and paginated pages shows page 2 in results
I have "no index, follow" on some pages, which I set 2 weeks ago. Today I see one of these pages showing in Google Search Results. I am using rel=next prev on pages, yet Page 2 of a string of pages showed up in results before Page 1. What could be the issue?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | khi50 -
My home page is not found by the "Grade a Page" tool
My home page as well as several important pages are not found by the Grade a Page tool. With our full https address I got this http://screencast.com/t/s1gESMlGwpa With just the www address I got this http://screencast.com/t/BMRHy36Ih https://www.joomlashack.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | etabush
https://www.joomlashack.com/joomla-templates We recently lost a lot of positions for our most important keyword: Joomla Templates Please help us figure this out. Whats screwy with our site?0 -
Does Google make continued attempts to crawl an old page one it has followed a 301 to the new page?
I am curious about this for a couple of reasons. We have all dealt with a site who switched platforms and didn't plan properly and now have 1,000's of crawl errors. Many of the developers I have talked to have stated very clearly that the HTacccess file should not be used for 1,000's of singe redirects. I figured If I only needed them in their temporarily it wouldn't be an issue. I am curious if once Google follows a 301 from an old page to a new page, will they stop crawling the old page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RossFruin0 -
Why does my home page show up in search results instead of my target page for a specific keyword?
I am using Wordpress and am targeting a specific keyword..and am using Yoast SEO if that question comes up.. and I am at 100% as far as what they recommend for on page optimization. The target html page is a "POST" and not a "Page" using Wordpress definitions. Also, I am using this Pinterest style theme here http://pinclone.net/demo/ - which makes the post a sort of "pop-up" - but I started with a different theme and the results below were always the case..so I don't know if that is a factor or not. (I promise .. this is not a clever spammy attempt to promote their theme - in fact parts of it don't even work for me yet so I would not recommend it just yet...) I DO show up on the first page for my keyword.. however.. instead of Google showing the page www.mywebsite.com/this-is-my-targeted-keyword-page.htm Google shows www.mywebsite.com in the results instead. The problem being - if the traffic goes only to my home page.. they will be less likely to stay if they dont find what they want immediately and have to search for it.. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chunkyvittles0