Why do other sites rank higher for our blog content?
-
Our site has always allowed other sites to RSS feed our content. Recently, we've noticed that searches for a title of our blog post will rank 2 sites that only publish said content, while our links are nowhere to be seen on the SERPs for Google.
Is there any way I can fix this or prod Google to adjust it for us?
Background: We were ranked highly in many long tail keywords, but lost many of them in June 2013. During this time going forward, we received no manual action.
-
The scraper's canonical tag points to their own site. I just added canonical tags to our content. I hope we win out.
-
When the same article appears on two websites and one of those has an rel=canonical pointing to the other website, then the site with the rel=canonical should not be indexed.
-
So I looked into the articles on both sites.
1)The first offender uses but links our original url using a <a href""=""> saying our page is the "source."</a>
<a href""="">2)The second offender just uses our titles and doesn't really have our content on their site, but links to the original page.
If I "play around" with cross domain canonicals that will probably help in the future, but will Google de-rank the articles posted by the first offender?</a>
-
You are getting a lot of diverse answers but Moosa has identified the key....
My advice would be to get quick links, whoever is syndicating your content ask them to link to the main source plus try playing around with cross domain canonicals and that might really help if the people who syndicate your content can add it on their website.
It does not matter who gets indexed first, adds new posts to sitemap, gets tweeted, gets fetched... Google generally respects strength and generally obeys canonicals.
-
Hey,
Depending upon authority, other pages are getting indexed earlier than yours. Best thing to avoid this thing
1. Submit Your Sitemap in Webmaster Tools to make your indexing fast
2. Whenever you add a blog post, make it indexed through this Google Tool: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url This works pretty quick.
3. Socialize your blog post immediatelyI hope this will help the cause!
Regards
-
I have found that a great way to take 'ownership' of your content is to immediately submit it to the Google index as soon as it goes live.
You can do this through Google Webmaster Tools.
Then, from the menu Crawl --> Fetch as Google.
Then, enter your URL, Fetch it, and Submit it to the index.
This should resolve your issue.
Note: Ensure that you get a confirmation message indicating that the page was submitted. Sometimes, it doesn't work on the first try.
-
I guess there are two parts in the question so let me go one by one!
Why other websites are ranking above mine? Exactly, when they use your RSS feed, they probably might get crawled quicker than the original content and that is why the problem starts!
My advice would be to get quick links, whoever is syndicating your content ask them to link to the main source plus try playing around with cross domain canonicals and that might really help if the people who syndicate your content can add it on their website.
You lost good amount of ranking positions in June 2013, I checked Moz Google Penalty calendar and finds out that there are 3 Google updates in June 2013 that are:
- Payday Loan on 11<sup>th</sup> June
- Panda dance on the same day
- Multi Week update on June 27, 2013
See if the traffic drop is around these days and in case of yes you know what the problem on your website is, consider fixing it!
Hope this helps!
-
Google uses a lot of different factors to determine why one site ranks above another site. However, when it comes to duplicate content (other sites using your site's RSS feed to generate content on their site), Google determines who posted the content first--and then the others are considered to be duplicates.
In your case, most likely the other sites are getting crawled quicker--therefore you are not the one who is originating the content, according to Google. You need Google to crawl your site quicker, and that typically is determined by how often you post content and the links to your content. Get more quality links to your site, and make sure you post on your social profiles (twitter, google plus, facebook, linkedin) whenever you post on your site.
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 to promote your blog content
Hi there, we've been blogging for a while now. Some of our content ranks quit well, other posts don't seem to be ranking at all. The weird thing (I think it's weird...) is that we recently published a post and focussed on a phrase that competes with over 400 million indexed pages, and after 3 weeks we're on page 3, and for other posts with only 2.5 million indexed pages we rank past page 5 (ok, this post is already 1,5 year old, does this matter?). To give you some background info, we moved our blog in January in a new subdomain, and redirected the old url's, but didn't actively promote the old posts. Would promoting the old articles through social media help us boost the rankings for these articles (the articles are "best practices", "how-to's", ...). Where / how do you promote your content after you published it on your blog? I find it hard posting in LinkedIn groups related to finance while I have the "online marketing manager" title on my profile. Why would a finance professional read an article shared by a marketing dude? As LinkedIn's API doensn't allow to post into groups anymore, do you actually go through all your relevant groups every time you publish a new blog to share the article?
Content Development | | jorisbrabants1 -
Staggered Blog Posting
Hi, My client has recently launched a new site - while the site was under development (A period of around 6 months) they build up a large amount of posts for their new blog. I have advised them against uploading all the posts in one go (ie from 0 to 100 in one day), as I'm sure this would be viewed with suspension by the search engines. My question is (and I'm not looking for a magic number here), what would be the best way to publish these blog posts, and what possible penalties could be triggered if we do it incorrectly. I do believe the content is unique and unpublished elsewhere. My suggestion to my client was to create a content calendar and set dates on which the various posts should be published. Further I suggested it is stagged or random, i.e. not every 2nd day - but vary it - so for example, 2 a day then a break for a day or two then one post, then the next day another 2 etc. Any thoughts from the Moz Community? Thanks, Jason
Content Development | | Clickmetrics0 -
Video content sites
In addition to you tube are there any other video sites worth uploading content to? Such as Vimeo? Are these any good or is you tube the only place worth publishing
Content Development | | Hardley1110 -
What if your content is getting social shares but no links?
Suppose you have a weekly blog article and sometimes your articles earn social shares (e.g. 23 +1's on Google Plus on one article but normally 3-5 social shares). One out of 10 earns an organic link from a random blog. Would you continue publishing these blog posts?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
Duplicate YouTube Script Content - Penalty?
I've been tasked with writing scripts for upward of 100 YouTube videos describing my company's products. In more than a few cases, the products are so similar as to be almost identical; unfortunately, they aren't and will require their own videos. If I create a "template" script, I would save hours and hours of tedium. For example: Video 1: (VOICEOVER) Buy the ABC widget today! Video 2: (VOICEOVER) Buy the XYZ widget today! So, my question is: Would I be looking at a duplicate content issue? Jeff McRichie's terrific Whiteboard Friday about YouTube Ranking Factors mentioned that YouTube has an auto-transcription feature that might expose my self-plagiarism, and I don't want to get dinged. BTW, this isn't a matter of my being too lazy to write individualized content; it's more that 1) the products are almost identical, and 2) I have just about a week to write, produce, and act(!) in all of them.
Content Development | | RScime250 -
Is there a tool for measuring content freshness?
i.e. crawling a site to identify last date of new or changed content? Thanks.
Content Development | | PeterTroast0 -
Is it worth to change a blog from a subdomain to subfolder?
We have a blog in a subdomain since some years and we are thinking about moving it to a subfolder, to see if we can boost the main domain (incoming links + fresh content). Could be worth it?
Content Development | | Montse0 -
On-Site Blog or Blog Service for Best SEO Results
I had a blog associated with my site, then I had to merge two Google accounts and to make a long story short, my old Blogger page won't transfer to the new account. So, I'm starting fresh. My Question: Would I benefit most from an on-site subdomain blog, adding content to my site on a weekly/monthly basis, or an off-site blog such as Blogger, linking back to pages and resources on my site? Then, any other juicy tips would be great. Honestly, I won't expect a large subscription base. There will be a natural draw for some trade associates, and I'll be linking and promoting them as well. Thanks for any input. I'm new to the community, and SEO, but really impressed with this community.
Content Development | | honestabejosh0