SEO having different effects for different sites
-
Hi,
I hope this isn't a dumb question, but I was asked by a local company to have a look at their website and make any suggestions on how to strengthen and improve their rankings. After time spent researching their competitors, and analysing their own website I was able to determine that they are actually in a good position. The have a well structured site that follows the basic search rules, they add new relevant content regularly and are working on their social strategy. Most of their pages are rated A within Moz, and they spend a lot of time tweaking the site.
When I presented this to them, they asked why there are sites that rank above them that don't seem to take as much care over their website. For example, one of their main competitors doesn't engage in any social networking, and rarely adds content to their site. I was just wondering if anyone could shed any light on why this happens?
I appreciate there's probably no simple answer, but it would be great to hear some different input.
Many thanks
-
Many thanks for your answer! I've been reading a number of articles recently about the updates to Google's algorithm. Some people say that link building is a dying art, as Google is focussing on more naturally shared content, where as others say that it's worth spending time on. Is it just that no one really knows?
-
Without knowing the URL or the competitors, obviously we have to guess. My money is on they probably have a weaker domain authority and less authoritative links than their competitors. If you want to share the url, I can give you more details, but that's my guess.
-
There are any number of reasons this could be happening. Perhaps they have more high authority links or maybe your site has a lot of links that don't pass much value. Their site could be older and getting a slight boost from that. They don't have social media accounts but they could still have been shared more on social media than your site. The level of traffic, bounce rate and exit % could be better than your site and Google could be seeing them as more relevant for those target terms because of it. Even though they don't update as often, their content could be considered more authoritative. Considering we don't know everything that makes up the ranking algorithm (& its constantly changing) and only really have concepts of the correlation between things, there's no way to definitively state that Tactic X is always the reason one site is higher in rankings for a specific search term than another site.
-
Does the other website have stronger authority links? Its more than likely this issue or maybe a 301?
One of my sites with a DA/PA of 30 out ranks a DA/PA 50 site by having a few really strong high authority links. It also has no social media and I only update the content once a month.
Getting a few authoritative links PA/DA 80+ does wonders. Or it could be shuffling from Google this past weekend.
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
-
Parallax Scrolling when used with “hash bang” technique is good for SEO or not?
Hello friends, One of my client’s website http://chakracentral.com/ is using Parallax scrolling with most of the URLs containing hash “#” tag. Please see few sample URLs below: http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock4 (service page)
Algorithm Updates | | chakraseo
http://chakracentral.com/#panelBlock3 (about-us page) I am planning to use “hash bang” technique on this website so that Google can read all the internal pages (containing hash “#” tag) with the current site architecture as the client is not comfortable in changing it. Reference: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/ajax-crawling/docs/getting-started#2-set-up-your-server-to-handle-requests-for-urls-that-contain-escaped_fragment But the problem that I am facing is that, lots of industry experts do not consider parallax websites (even with hash bang technique) good for SEO especially for mobile devices. See some references below: http://searchengineland.com/the-perils-of-parallax-design-for-seo-164919
https://moz.com/blog/parallax-scrolling-websites-and-seo-a-collection-of-solutions-and-examples So please find my queries below for which I need help: 1. Will it be good to use the “hash bang” technique on this website and perform SEO to improve the rankings on desktop as well as mobile devices?
2. Is using “hash bang” technique for a parallax scrolling website good for only desktop and not recommended for mobile devices and that we should have a separate mobile version (without parallax scrolling) of the website for mobile SEO?
3. Parallax scrolling technique (even with "hash bang") is not at all good for SEO for both desktop as well as mobile devices and should be avoided if we want to have a good SEO friendly website?
4. Any issue with Google Analytics tracking for the same website? Regards,
Sarmad Javed0 -
Duplicate Product Pages On Niche Site
I have a main site, and a niche site that has products for a particular category. For example, Clothing.com is the main site, formalclothing.com is the niche site. The niche site has about 70K product pages that have the same content (except for navigation links which are similar, but not dupliated). I have been considering shutting down the niche site, and doing a 301 to the category of the main site. Here are some more details: The niche sites ranks fairly well on Yahoo and Bing. Much better than the main site for keywords relevant to that category. The niche site was hit with Penguin, but doesn't seem to have been effected much by Panda. When I analyze a product page on the main site using copyscape, 1-2 pages of the niche site do show, but NOT that exact product page on the niche site. Questions: Given the information above, how can I gauge the impact the duplicate content is having if any? Is it a bad idea to do a canonical tag on the product pages of the niche site, citing the main site as the original source? Any other considerations aside from duplicate content or Penguin issue when deciding to 301? Would you 301 if this was your site? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
Is My SEO Strategy Doomed?
Hi Mozzers, Second time poster here and still a major rookie with SEO. I run the website http://OrangeOctop.us/, it provides winning tips for video games such as FIFA, NBA 2K, NHL. All of the tips are written by experts and professional gamers. The site has been trying to rank for the term "NHL 14 Tips". To give you some more background info, the actual game, NHL 14, does not come out for another two weeks. I was just being proactive with trying to rank for a term that will be popular in the future. My Wordpress category page, http://orangeoctop.us/nhl14-tips/, ranked as high as #5 for "NHL 14 Tips", but it seems that as it gets closer to the game's release date, I get pushed further down the google rankings. In the most recent Moz crawl, my site just dropped 11 spots. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | orangeoctop.us0 -
Seeking out different avenues....Affiliate Programs
Our company is seeking out different avenues. Our company is seeking out new avenues for growth. We are interested in Affiliate Programs and want to know how Google views this. We do not want our SERP to decease and feel it is important to keep any negative implications away from our site and our company. Does anyone have experience in Affiliate Programs and if so did it negatively effect your site? Our company is an e-commerce site that sell aftermarket products for trucks, SUVs, Jeeps, Motorcycles, ATV, and more. Thank you
Algorithm Updates | | WebRiverGroup0 -
How can I tell Google two sites are non-competing?
We have two sites, both English language. One is a .ca and the other is a .com, I am worried that they are hurting one another in the search results. I'd like to obviously direct google.ca towards the .ca domain and .com towards the .com domain and let Google know they are connected sites, non-competing.
Algorithm Updates | | absoauto0 -
How do you block incoming links to your site?
With the new update to google focusing on link spam and multiple anchor text ? If you have incoming links that you would like to block or make no follow?
Algorithm Updates | | HelpingHandNetwork1 -
What is the difference between Bing and Google ranking factors ?
I know basic SEO factors and i understand On Page SEO title/meta/content optimzation and Off Page backlinking factors. Yet we see different ranking on both SEs so I want to know what are those? Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | NiceGuy1