Why is my competitor's site ranking #1?
-
I'm about to work for a local business website that offers cleaning services and products. The keyword they want the most is ruled by a very odd site;
My client's competitor's site has been around for 7 years. (Less than the average of it's competitors. Less than my client's)
Has 1 backlink.
Lower PA MR MT & DA than any other in the SERP.
It's a 1 page site made with Flash.
They do not have FB or Twitter accounts.
So I thought maybe they were ranking so well because of their traffic. But neither my client, me or my coworkers have ever heard of this company.
And yet, they are ranking #1. And the only thing I notice that might have helped is that the title of their page is the exact keyword and nothing more.
Any ideas?
-
Hey Matt,
Thanks a lot for your quick response. You're right, I was just considering those 4-5 factors. I really liked your theories and I appreciate the "How Garbage Ranks" link.
Cheers!
-
I'm waiting for my YouMoz post to go live so I can just start linking that to these discussions but in the meantime, I'll try to answer it.
You're looking at just maybe 4 or 5 factors out of maybe 200 that Google may use to rank sites. We could speculate on what this particular competitor is doing but nobody will be able to tell you for sure.
-
They could be using a 301 redirect from a site with a lot of juice - or perhaps multiple sites they owned in the past that they have now redirected.
-
Google likes some variety in SERPs: check the keyword viagra. You'll see a few DA0, links 0, PA0 sites. That's one of the more competitive keywords online. My article will deal with credit cards - the same thing happens in that space all the time. They do rank because of the title, URL, and basic on page stuff.
You can see more reasons on my answer here: http://www.seomoz.org/q/competitor-out-ranks-my-site
One other answer: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-garbage-ranks-in-the-serps-a-case-study
Hope those help!
-
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
-
Why are they ranking?
Hi I've been looking at domains which rank well for a particular search term - plastic storage boxes to try and see why they rank. http://www.poundstretcher.co.uk/home-furniture/storage-organisation/plastic-storage ranks particularly well. From what I can see, they have about 6 backlinks, 28 DA, and 11 PA - which isn't that high compared to others ranking on the first page. I can't work out why they rank so highly, they also rank for over 100 other storage terms for this page. Am I looking in the wrong place?
Competitive Research | | BeckyKey0 -
How can stale, poor quality sites rank above fresh, high quality sites?
Dear Community, How is it that a Google search for temperature sensors shows the second result as site **A **(http://goo.gl/zRS1L) in a higher positionthan site B (http://goo.gl/3Xy2O) which is on the 2nd page of the SERPs. Site A blatantly does not follow Google's webmaster guidelines and recommendations for design, content or code. Site B scores an 'A' for on page analysis using SEOmoz, it also has a much higher number of root domains in and Moz rank, we have checked that site B has only quality inbound links, and anchor text is natural, it follows Google's guidelines for content and code diligently, and it is on an older domain. We are satisfied that site B has not been penalised by Google, e.g Penguin algorithm updates. We have also done a website verification with Google. Site B has fresher content compared to site A. Site B also has a sitemap yet site A doesn't. We're satisfied that we can rule out the following Algorithm Factors: Penguin algorithm updates Google Notified penalties Dodgy Inbound links Dodgy Anchor text Website verification with Google Fresh vs. static content Sitemap present Server Speed Server location Domain age and about 170 other algorithm factors Does anyone have any ideas as to why site A is ranking higher than site B in Google.co.uk? Thanks in advance. CD.
Competitive Research | | chichesterdesign0 -
Can i see the keywords my competitors are optimizing seo for?
Ideally, I would get a list of the keywords my competitors are targeting.
Competitive Research | | sajalsahay0 -
Keyword Search - another site bypassed me and they are not ranked well...
I was trying to optimize the keywords "music for kids" . This is a no brainer because my URL is "musicforkids" My On-Page Report Card for "music for kids" gives my site a "A". The on page report card for the other site gets an "F". But the other site comes up number ONE in the organic Google search and my site comes up number three. The two sites above me receive a crappy on page Keyword report for the key words "music for kids" but they still come up above me for that search term. What's the deal?
Competitive Research | | musicforkids1 -
Tool to scan contents of a page and see it through Google's eyes?
Does anyone know of a tool that can be used to input a URL and have it spit out keywords of how Google could possible see what the contents of that page is about?
Competitive Research | | shawn810 -
Are there any tools to extract keywords and long tail keywords from a site and report keyword density by URL?
I need a tool that does the following: Find exact matches for keywords in content of sites and report keyword density by URL. Then identify the value generated by a particular keyword.
Competitive Research | | MotionPoint0 -
Our site being outranked by competitors with lower "moz" scores - due to on-page SEO?
Howdy, Our SEO efforts are doing well, but for a few keywords it seems we cannot budge one of the competitors sitting in spot #1. Through some competitive analysis I've noticed that our website has a much higher mozRank with regards to both page and domain compared to the current #1 spot. My question is what kind of factors could be the issue as to why we are still being outranked. Is it simply a case of poor on-page SEO at this point or should I be taking the mozRanks with a grain of salt.
Competitive Research | | marketingdepartment.ch0 -
Sometime I just don't get Google rankings
We currently rate #10 on google.com.au on Modern Cloth Nappies and the #4 site is a dead link to a page http://www.modernclothnappies.org/ who's total content is: Index of / <address>Apache Server at www.modernclothnappies.org Port 80</address> <address></address> <address>They have been at that rank for a quiet a while and even the cached version is full of broken links.</address> <address></address> <address>It seems Google is quick to jump on low value sites or ones with duplicate content, but what about stale links and sites? Has anyone else had similar experiences of being out ranked by domant or dead sites?</address>
Competitive Research | | oznappies0