Why is my homepage ranking BELOW a subpage?
-
Search "peer to peer lending".
The page http://www.ratesetter.com/peer_to_peer_lending.htm appears higher than the homepage.
I don't think this is because of keyword density on page either as Zopa (competitor) have zero mentions of this keyword on their homepage.
What are your suggestions for getting the homepage ranked higher?
Thanks, Simon.
-
Remember you don't need to have that phrase exactly to be ranked for it. If the content has "peer" and "lending" in it, with some good off-page ranking "points" they could show higher than your site. Good luck!
-
I didn't dig into their site but I can tell you there is some sort of co-citation going on there. Rand did an awesome WBF a little while back that probably explains exactly what is going on.
-
Thanks vzPRO, appreciate you doing an on-page. I've done this already and recognise the good ratings of each page. The subpage is more keyword rich but if you refer to my reply to Kevin this is what is confusing me.
-
Thanks TommyTan. Yes indeed it does, but see my reply to Kevin above.
-
Thanks Kevin. This is what I find odd though, if you search the term "peer to peer lending" our competitor Zopa appears top with their homepage as the result. They have NO mention of "peer to peer lending" whatsoever on their homepage.
-
I've seen strong correlation between the keyword being in the page name / url and rankings but in general a sub-page is generally more targeted for a keyword.
I just ran the seomoz on-page report card for your home page and sub page with the keyword being peer to peer lending and though they both received an "A" there were more factors helping the sub page.
-
Google feels that that page is more relevant for that keyword than the homepage. Just looking at the on-page factors, I agree w/Google. The url, heading and overall copy seems to reflect that term more than the home page. Also, this page is much better landing page than the home page for people searching for info on this term.
-
Hi Simon,
I just have to say it even though it may not be the reason, does your subpage have more keywords and content than the home page for bots to crawl?
Another reason may be because you are getting more backlinks and social share on your subpage than your home page. Google may find that your subpage provide the better result to searchers than the home page because it might have more backlinks or contents for them to crawl.
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
-
Should I build internal links to my homepage?
Ive done a lot of internal linking before but its always been for other inner pages but now I need to do it for a websites homepage but this got me thinking if its even worth doing and should I be doing it at all? For the first question I was thinking that surely the homepage has more authority than any of my inner pages so how would internal links from inner pages help and for the second question Ive read a few posts like this Kissmetrics one here where it says you shouldnt do it. There are two types of links you should avoid using in your content: Homepage. Most sites have too many links to the homepage as it is. You would rather strengthen internal pages to boost the overall SEO of your site, rather than simply point more links at the homepage. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/commandments-of-internal-linking/ thoughts?
Link Building | | linklander0 -
Is it possible to get high page rank without backlinks?
Today while looking for expired domains i found many high pr domains, checked for fake pr found they are valid but there were zero backlinks pointing to them.Is this possible?
Link Building | | IndiaFPS1 -
Maintaining or improving keyword ranking
I started a second website recently and it is doing very well. I am on the first page for a competitive keyword - spot 5 according to Moz. It is actually a category page that is ranking so well which is a surprise to me as I have read many times that I should deindex category pages due to duplicate content! My questions: 1. How do I get backlinks to a CATEGORY page?! I have been able to get backlinks to certain posts because my website is a deal blog and other deal blogs give me credit for popular deals by linking to my post. 2. How can I maintain this high ranking? Of course I want in spot 3 but this website isn't even 2 months old so I know I should be patient. At this point, I just want to stay on the first page. What is the best way to do that? I am about to fill out the SEO stuff for the category page which I haven't done yet.Thanks!
Link Building | | dealblogger0 -
Ranking For Non-Context-Friendly Terms Without Anchor-Text
We are now at a point with Google where having a link profile that has a lot of exact match anchor text for a few main keyword targets is not a good thing. So, how do we rank for terms that do not fit into the content of your site, but are still good keyword targets. Here is an example from my situation. A good keyword target for my area and business that I am working for is "plumber riverside" or "plumber riverside ca." In a gramatical sense, these two/three words do not belong together in content, i.e they would not make a proper sentence being placed together, except with maybe a comma or period separating them. In fact, this term probably wouldn't even make a good sidebar link copy. Without having a link profile with "plumber riverside" as my most common anchor text, how can I let Google know that I should rank for this term? Anchor text used to be the go to but now you have to really minimize the use of it for exact match terms. Without on page content, it seems pretty hard. Any thoughts?
Link Building | | tonyflorespsa0 -
Why do hallmarks from web design companies carry so much ranking weight for the recipient website?
Website designers/developers place hallmarks (Website Designed by XXXX) in the footer region of the web sites they have designed/built, how much ranking value do these hallmarks have being that they're pointing from sites that are irrelevant to the web designer's, and why?
Link Building | | UplinkSpyder0 -
On Page Optimization to Rank For Multiply Cities
I have service that operates in western Massachusetts, and I'm targeting keywords that are "KEYWORD - CITY", i have over 20 cities, whats the best way to optimize my website for these keywords, should i create a one page and mention all the cities that we operate in? Thanks
Link Building | | vlad_mezoz0 -
High Ranking, Low DA & PA
I have some low competition words that I am trying to rank for, I have a competitor that is using similar words but outranking people with more links DA, and PA. How is this possible? I do see alot of people in our niche buying domain names that match exact keyword searches, with little or know backlinks ranking top 5. Thank You
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
If I create articles with my keyword phrases and find sites to post them on, will this help wiith my search engine rankings for keyword phrases?
Also, if I use my web site name for the anchor text on backlinks will it still help getting me ranked for my keyword phrases?
Link Building | | katiasm0