Why does my infographic rank better on other websites than my own?
-
I recently created an infographic that was quite popular in my niche and a lot of people linked to it and embedded it on their own sites.
Now, if you search the term I was trying to rank for, everybody who linked to me ranks higher than the page that everyone is linking to and it's the page where the original graphic was posted.
According to SEOmoz, I have the highest Domain and Page Authority than everyone else in front of me.
How the hell is this possible?
If you want to see for yourself, just type in "hot tub yoga" into Google and I'm on the second page, http://www.swimuniversity.com/blog/hot-tub-yoga-infographic
I would love some help on this and I thank you all in advance.
-
You are dead on with this and now I feel like a idiot
I want to point out that below the infographic on my page is a whole bunch of text that I wrote to go along with it.
I also did something really stupid a few weeks ago: I updated all my links on Ezine Articles. So, to Google, it looks like my website got a bunch of links all at once - very unnatural and I'm kicking myself for doing that. I just deleted all my article from there because they were shitty and I don't want my name on them anymore. The content I create is far superior now than it was 4 years ago.
I am working on cleaning up my link profile for 2013 and i will take your advice about the infographics. They get me a lot of links, but way to fast and all with the same anchor text. I like the idea of just asking people to give me credit if they want to use my infographic.
Thanks for the help!
-
Hi Matthew,
Sorry to hear about the lower rankings. This situation totally sucks, I know.
Unfortunately, this situation is more and more common with infographics. By all rights, you should rank higher for this term. A couple reasons why this might be happening:
1. Over-optimized anchor Text: As the other commenter pointed out, most of your incoming links are the phrase "hot tub yoga". We see this in Open Site Explorer as well - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/anchors?site=www.swimuniversity.com%2Fblog%2Fhot-tub-yoga-infographic
In the past year, especially since the Penguin updates, we've seen Google target this type of anchor text. When you get the same, repeating exact match anchor text for a phrase, it often triggers a filter which prevents you from ranking. Many SEOs now advise to use generic or branded anchor text as your link, such as www.example.com, which most likely won't be penalized.
Other SEOs advocate rotating your anchor text. Mike King recently wrote a post about this. http://blog.iacquire.com/2013/01/03/using-embed-code-randomize-your-links-anchor-text/
My personal preference goes a step further: don't use an embed code or specify an anchor text. Let folks know they can repost your infographic - even give them the file to do so - then simply ask for attribution. This way your anchor text is randomized, and likely carries more value.
2. The page may be over-optimized in other ways. I see this often when the title tag, URL, headline and anchor text all match up, Google sees this as over-optimization and will knock you down in rankings.
It's too late to change the URL (unless you want to do a rediret) But you can back off on the title.
3. Aside from the infographic, there's very little text on the page. And, of course, the words on the infographic are all an image. Adding a couple hundred words of unique text at the top, then adding an HTML text only version at the bottom could help this page to rank.
There's still a chance to turn this page around. New links (not optimized) may reverse a Penguin-like penalty, and you can add more content and alter the meta data of the page (not too much!)
Hope this helps. Best of luck!
-
Well, I am ranking in Yahoo and Bing. It's only with Google. I feel like I'm being penalized for something.
I have another example too.
There is another website that ranks for "mustard pool algae" and that site only has two sentences and then a link to my article about mustard pool algae. This has been happening a lot and I'm creating really awesome and useful content that shouldn't be buried.
Any suggestions? Could there be a problem with my mod rewrites?
-
This is really weird. What I feel is that you should not have targeted the exact match keyword - "Hot Tub Yoga". You should be using long tail keyword in the embedded code. I fear for that reason, you website might be ranking low in this keyword.
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
-
zero ranking keywords
My website, pescoonlinebill.com, shows many queries in console but there are zero ranking keywords in MOZ dashboard.
Link Building | | realdy0 -
Should harmful links to your own website be removed?
Upon running a link report on a website, there are often multiple links flagged as bad or suspect that come from a blog that is integrated into the website, which means there are links (set up as article tags) in the site that go to other pages in the same site. They have likely been flagged due to their high frequency. A similar problem is occurring where blogs from a connected site (from an offshoot site of a company that is part of the original) are also tagging their blog posts to link into the original website. Should these links be disavowed? Will these links have an effect on the website if they are disavowed or not?
Link Building | | rachelmanning8880 -
Website Ranking well in Mobile but not in Desktop
Hello guys, Recently we are experiencing good rankings for our targeted keywords in mobile but in desktop the rankings are not progressing. For example, in Mobile, our main targetted keyword ranks in 7th position but in Desktop we are stuck in 11th position. In desktop the website have been stuck in 11th position for quite some time now, any suggestion will help.
Link Building | | NkZagreus0 -
Is there a good website builder that can gain links?
I made the horrible mistake of using GoDaddy website builder and just found out that I have 3 homepages with a 302 temporary redirect on one of them. GoDaddy says I have only one homepage and no redirects which is not true as far as both Google Webmaster and Mozpro are concerned. I am not able to change anything structurally on the Godaddy site. Is there an economical alternative to having a website built that I can work with myself (with little knowledge) and that I can do some link building that will be effective. Thank you, I will refrain from commenting on GoDaddy Scott
Link Building | | ScottR.0 -
Drop in rankings after gaining new link
Hi everyone I have seen an odd trend in my rankings over the past 6 months that I would like to hear your experiences about. Everytime a get a new link I see an imediate minor drop in rankings only to bounce back to a higher level tah before. Has anyone seen a similar trend in their rankings and what might be causing it? I have made no changes to the site during the link building process.
Link Building | | AndersDK0 -
Can competitors pay to have spammy sites link to your website?
Is there anything stopping competitors from doing a negative text-linking campaign against your site to purposefully harm your business?
Link Building | | mbelsito0 -
Trying to rank highly for specific keyword, any advice?
I run a boating site and its been live since early February. Most of my traffic comes from direct traffic or google, keyword "trawler blogs". However, I am trying to rank highly for the generic keyword "trawler" or "trawlers" and I've had very little success. My homepage just got an A from the on-page analysis for keyword trawler. I've also reached out to several other trawler sites to try to get a link from them, or a reciprocal link. Haven't had much traction. However, our site is listed on a bunch (10-12) trawler related blogs (mostly blogspot) in their blogrolls, although these don't show up in backlinks. Any advice would be great. Thank you!
Link Building | | jacobr2170