Keywords Directing Traffic To Incorrect Pages
-
We're experiencing an issue where we have keywords directing traffic to incorrect child landing pages. For a generic example using fake product types, a keyword search for XL Widgets might send traffic to a child landing page for Commercial Widgets instead.
In some cases, the keyword phrase might point a page for a child landing page for a completely different type of product (ex: a search for XL Widgets might direct traffic to XL Gadgets instead).
It's tough to figure out exactly why this might be happening, since each page is clearly optimized for its respective keyword phrase (an XL Widgets page, a Commercial Widgets page, an XL Gadgets page, etc), yet one page ends up ranking for another page’s keyword, while the desired page is pushed out of the SERPs.
We're also running into an issue where one keyword phrase is pointing traffic to three different child landing pages where none of the ranking pages are the page we've optimized for that keyword phrase, or the desired page we want to rank appears lower in the SERPs than the other two pages (ex: a search for XL Widgets shows XL Gadgets on the first SERP, Commercial Widgets on the second SERP, and then finally XL Widgets down on the third or fourth SERP).
We suspect this may be happening because we have too many child landing pages that are targeting keyword terms that are too similar, which might be confusing the search engines. Can anyone offer some insight into why this may be happening, and what we could potentially do to help get the right pages ranking how we'd like?
-
Yeah, we had suspected that just having too many keywords that are too similar could be causing confusion for search engines, but it's good to have a third party affirmation to support that assessment. We do intend to rework and "un" optimize some of our pages that are competing with one another and see what happens. Thanks for the assistance and for sharing that blog article too.
-
Thanks for the response and linking to that article, some helpful tips there.
-
I think you answered your own question - there's confusion for the search engine. Similar keywords can do that- even though you say it's clear to you what page is optimized there's some data to prove that the search engines aren't in agreement. (I have a lot of pages and run into the same issue.)
Have you run the competing pages through the Moz optimization tool to see what feedback it gives you? If you see each page is an "A" for the same term, there's some information you can work with to start reworking your content to "un" optimize the pages you don't want to rank.
I like this article Rand wrote that addresses how to correct this issue: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/wrong-page-ranking-in-the-results-6-common-causes-5-solutions
-
Check out this post on the subject
Make sure your internal links to the landing pages have the correct, distinct anchors.
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
-
Page dropped after backlink
This is a bit of a odd one... I put two new pages on to my website. And built one backlink to each page (each from separate domains). The pages and backlinks have indexed quite quickly. The odd thing is that one of my pages has dropped significantly in ranking but the other has boosted significantly in ranking! The 1st page has come to page 1 of google, the other pages dropped to page 3 of google. Prior to building the links the ranks was stable. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
H1 tags and keywords for subpages, is it best practice to reuse the keywords?
So let's say I have a parent page for shoes, and I have subpages for dress shoes, work shoes, play shoes, then inside each of those pages I have dress shoe cleaning, dress shoe repair, same for work and play shoes. Would it be ok to use h1 tags like this: Shoes > Dress Shoes > Dress Shoe Cleaning Dress Shoe Repair Work Shoes > Work Shoe Cleaning Work Shoe Repair Play Shoes > Play Shoe Cleaning Play Shoe Repair Would these be considered duplicate h1 tags since cleaning and repair are used for each subpage? In certain niche companies, it's rather difficult to use synonyms for keywords. Or is it ok to just keep things simple and use Shoes > Dress Shoes > Cleaning and so on? Especially since we have urls and breadcrumbs that are structured nicely using keywords, for this example both breadcrumbs and urls read like sitename.com/shoes/dress-shoes/cleaning. Any advice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deacyde0 -
Super URL Keyword Re-Directs - Google Safe ?
Hi Guys Any help would be much appreciated here. Can anyone tell me if I was to use a keyword super url re-direct could it still be possible to rank high in Google ?? ?? Does Google have an issue with re-directs ?? Thanks Guys Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GAZ090 -
Will Using Attributes For Landing Pages In Magento Dilute Page Rank?
Hello Mozzers! We have an ecommerce site built on Magento. We would like to use attribute filters in our layered navigation for landing page purposes. Each page will have a unique URL, Meta Title and Meta Description. For example: URL: domain.com/art/abstract (category is Art, attribute is Abstract) Title: Abstract Art For Sale Meta: Blah Blah Blah Currently these attribute pages are not being indexed by google as they are set in google parameters. We would like to edit google parameters to start indexing some of the attribute filters that users search for, so they can be used as landing pages. Does anyone have experience with this? Is this a good idea? What are the consequences? Will this dilute Page Rank? Could this destroy the world? Cheers! MozAddict
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozAddict0 -
Page titles, Keyword rich or single keyword?
Hi Everybody, My previous SEO company had set the page titles like : keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | keyword | My new one is changing every thing and replacing them with sentences including one or two keywords in each one. Could you please let me know which one is better approach? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
Product pages content
Hi! I'm doing some SEO work for a new client. I've been tasked with boosting some of their products, such as http://www.lawnmowersdirect.co.uk/product/self-propelled-rear-roller-rotary-petrol-lawnmowers/honda-hrx426qx. It's currently #48 for the term Honda Izy HRG465SD, while http://www.justlawnmowers.co.uk/lawnmowers/honda-izy-hrg-465-sd.htm is #2, behind Amazon. Regarding links, there's no great shakes between the pages or even the domains. However, there's major difference in content. I'm happy to completely revamp it, I just wanted to check I'm not missing anything out before starting to rewrite it altogether! Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | neooptic0 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0 -
How to Target Multiple Keywords in Single Page
Hey There, We're planning to target multiple keywords in a single page.. they keywords are definitely related and to an extent could be considered as synonyms.. We have a few questions as to how to optimize the page for on page and off page. On Page Do we mention all the targeted keywords on the page? At a maximum we could mention the keywords once..of course want to give out relevant and quality content and do not want to focus on keyword density How do we optimize the URL structure? For ex... We have keywords aa, ab and ac, where a is the base keyword Is it a good option to to have a URL structure like http://www.example.com/a-b-c.html? How do we go about mentioning the targeted keywords in meta description.. We've read the articles at SEOMoz.. but would want opinions What about HI, H2 and H3 Tags? how do we go about optimizing these Off Page While using off page we will of course vary our anchor text with the multiple keywords... this will make it look natural. Will we manage to rank for the multiple keywords (if we vary anchor text) that we're targeting if our backlinking method are strong? Thank you all for your inputs and responses...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | elagaan0