Google is showing the "wrong" page in the serps for user queries
-
Our site, cpuboss.com has two main types of pages: comparisons of CPUs, and pages about individual CPUs.
When I google search for "fx8350", a keyword for the cpu "AMD FX-8350", I hoped to see our CPU page ranking, instead I see a comparison of this CPU against another.
http://i.imgur.com/QwNczDj.png?1 (Our page ranks #5)
Any idea? Many of our comparisons rank for CPU keywords, when I think it'd be a better experience for the user if our cpu pages ranked instead.
This particular CPU page is linked to on our homepage with appropriate anchor text, and linked to on that comparison also. I would have hoped the relevance of the cpu page to this keyword would be stronger than the comparison page, and google might use that relevance signal to show the user the right page.
thoughts?
-
Cool, I'd be interested in the outcome! Let us know how it went:)
-
Thats a great idea, I'm going to try that. I think I'll get some descriptions written up for some CPU pages, and leave others without and compare how they do, see if rankings change.
Thanks!
-
Oh yes true, now I see it. You linked to it 21 times, so actually this now looks like you linked too much!
But like you've said, I think relevance is key. Try to add a little bit of content to the CPU page. A quick unique description of it or so. See if that helps. I guess you might have to test a few different approaches to see which ones work. This is actually a really interesting case.
-
Hi Miki, thanks for the response.. just playing devil's advocate here, the site's homepage has a higher page authority than the comparison, and more external links, so would we expect it to show up in the SERPs instead of the comparison page?
This is a class of problem, it seems to happen with keywords for every CPU, so I'd have to implement your solution of building links for hundreds of pages.
Aren't links typically created by third parties? Or do you create all your own links to your site?
-
Hi Moosa, I'm a bit confused.
There are many pages on the internet that are better results than my comparison page, yet they do not show up, because they are not about the cpu. I'm pretty sure we should be focused on relevance here, not authority.
I don't really have any control of how often other people +1 a page, or link to a page. As it happens this comparison page has been +1'd more than the cpu page. I don't see how that is related to google showing a user a relevant page.
Sure, I could try to get this product page some more +1s, but as I mentioned to Philipp, this is a class of problem, e.g. all my cpu pages have this issue, they don't show up in the serps and instead a comparison of the cpu vs some other cpu shows up in instead.
For example, the site's homepage has more +1s and links than the comparison page, it also has a bit of content about the fx8350 on it, yet google is not showing the homepage in the serps for this query.
-
Hey Philipp, thanks for the response. The Comparison page does link to the CPU page many times with the text "FX 8350", also with "AMD FX 8350".
Keep in mind this issue exists for all the CPU pages (over 200), and each CPU of course is searched for by users with a variety of keywords.
-
Completely agree with Philipp’s strategy plus you can also share the page on social media forums (Google+ specially) and get some +1s for that page to let search engine know what is the better result for users!
Linking from the page that is ranking to the page that you want to be ranked is also a good idea to be implemented!
-
What works pretty good for me usually is linking from the page that does (but should not) rank to the page that should (but does not) rank, using the anchor text you want to rank for.
In this case this means linking from the comparison page to the CPU page with the anchor text including "fx8350".
-
Well, the comparison page has a page authority of 32 while the product page only has a page authority of 21.
This is the most important factor.
THe comparison page also has external links from PC Gamer, and Bit-Tech - while the product page has zero external (followed) links.
I would try to build some external links to the product page.
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
-
How happy should we be about a Page 1 “See results about” SERP?
A site fell off Page 1 organic listings but now regularly appears in the right-side “See results about“ SERP. How valuable are such results, especially compared to the 1-10 organic result listing? And, are “see results about” SERPs national?
On-Page Optimization | | PKI_Niles0 -
Which Is More Important? Building a web page for customer reviews or a careers page?
Hello, I am wondering which would be more important to have on a website a customer review page or a careers page? And as far an SEO advantage which is more important and why?
On-Page Optimization | | Nicks1230 -
Meta title not showing up correctly on SERP
We have an issue with some clients on a Wordpress CMS where title tags implemented on a Yoast SEO plugin for the Homepage are not coming up as we'd implemented them. However, the source code shows we'd implemented them correctly according to what we'd wanted.**For example, this is the title tag we implemented in the CMS:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingSource code shows:Towing Services Alberta | Jack's TowingHowever, SERP results shows:**Jack's Towing | Towing Services Alberta This is not an issue with the rest of the other pages and there isn't a global template for our client's sites. It's perplexing that it's only happening on the Homepage and this is across for 3 of our clients' sites.Even more perplexing, recently we've noticed that SERP is only showing the client's business name as the title tag and this is across for 2 out of the 3 clients we'd mentioned above. Nothing has changed in the back-end.Would appreciate some insight on this issue!
On-Page Optimization | | Gavo4 -
On Page Optimization Reports for Google UK Grade A - F
Hi, Can someone please explain how it is that one of my keywords ranks as a Grade A and a Grade F? This doesn't seem to make any sense? Thanks in advance. Heather
On-Page Optimization | | T1RBO0 -
Is it impossible to get out of Panda? Matt Cutts says if you fix the problem you "pop back" but if so why are their so few examples?
In this video matt cutts says: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IzUuhTyvJk about 15 "once we re-run our data (every few weeks) if we determine your site is of higher quality you would pop back out of being affected" Panda has effected thousands of sites and a lot of smart people have been working on the problem for about 2 years since the first panda was launched, but I can only find 1 site that has "popped back" to their original rankings. e.g. http://searchengineland.com/google-panda-two-years-later-losers-still-losing-one-real-recovery-149491 Apart from Motortrend.com I can't find any sites (of reasonable size) / case studies of sites that have solved the panda problem, and were definitely hit by panda. Which doesn't feel right, some people have deleted a ton of pages, redesigned their site, improved their content, etc with no success. Therefore is it a pointless exercise? Therefore, is it better to simply give up and start a new site?
On-Page Optimization | | julianhearn1 -
SERP change that removed commercial sites from the first page?
Suppose that Google made a change and all of a sudden a certain type of keyword phrase doesn't show any commercial sites on the first page of SERPs. Have you ever had this experience? What would you do in this scenario? Would you give up on those keyword phrases and target a different keyword phrase?
On-Page Optimization | | ProjectLabs0 -
Home page or landing page?
Hello, I want to ask a question related to that - Should we put keywords in the home page title if we wish to position another landing page better for particular keywords? I have read in one website about SEO that it's good the main keywords of your website to be positioned in homepage title also. f.e. Let's say we have website about web-design and our company is named Company Ltd. The title of the home page is "Company Ltd. - Web design, SEO, etc" We have also another inner page named "Web design | Company Ltd.". So should we leave the first page name only "Company Ltd." and the landing page's name "Web design | Company Ltd." . I don't know if they both have the same keyword in their title they won't compete with each other.
On-Page Optimization | | HrishikeshKarov0 -
Can rel="canonical" refer to another website page?
I want to republish the post from another website with their permission and want to abide by Google guidelines. Google guidelines is clear when you are using the same content at different parts of the same site however not when using it on another site in a legitimate way. Is there some way to use rel="canonical" refer to another website page of you are reproducing the content from same page?
On-Page Optimization | | h1seo0
