Any reasons why social media properties are ranking higher than the site's own name?
-
The site below has social media properties and other sites coming up before it's own listing even for the exact search of the site name. Any ideas why this is happening?
Any input is appreciated.
-
lol, nice one.
-
You're welcome. I mean "I know you'll do that for someone else" ;).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-grant/pay-it-forward_b_4270340.html
-
Thanks Erwan, appreciate the insights
-
I agree with Andy.
1/ According to SEMrush : feb. 2014 = 536 keywords in Google top. Only 269 in march 2014.
http://fr.semrush.com/info/smartpress.com+(by+organic)
Does Google Analytics show the same ?
2/ Did you modify website navigation/menus, template, server or htaccess file recently ? Probably not.
3/ Check Google Webmaster Tools for manual penalty. If you don't have a penalty message, look for an algorithmic penalty.
4/ No big change in 2014 algorithm according to MOZ yet : http://moz.com/google-algorithm-change#2014
But smartpress got a lot of new links recently :
https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/overview/subdomains/?target=smartpress.com
From 680 to 900 domains in few months; are all these links "natural" ?
I see that you did a lot of guest articles ; some are not really close to your niche. That may deserve you :
http://creditcard-lawsuit.com/credit-card-debt-management-and-related-ideas/
Matt Cutts warned people on jan. 20 2014 : "The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO"
-
When a site doesn't rank for their brand, but has done previously, this can often be attributed to a penalty of some kind. I searched for "Smartpress" and didn't find them in the first 2 pages. However, this can also happen if they are a new site.
Other times this can happen, are when they brand themselves based on an already well-used industry terms that others are already ranking for. Imagine me calling myself "SEO Company" and hoping that would appear first because it was my brand? It wouldn't work this way.
Looking at the penalty possibility first, do you know if there have been any manual or algorithmic actions taken against the site? Does Google Analytics show you anything like this? Has their traffic dropped?
-Andy
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
-
Site Title When Your Domain name is the keyword
Hello, I've been struggling with an issue for years. I own UsedCubicles.com. I'm ranked very well, the site generates leads and income on a regular basis. However, I never know what to name the site on the home page. The main keyword I go after is obviously "Used Cubicles". I also have product category named "Used Cubicles". I know google doesn't recognize my Used Cubicles product category as conical and reverts to the home page. I would rather Google use my categories more effectively to rank content or pages. My current site title on the home page is NOT GOOD. Used Cubicles | Usedcubicles.com. Im nervous to change it, however because Im not sure if its helping me rank for the keyword, which I do. For years I was #1 across the country but lately its been dropping. Any advice is appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grant06970 -
Making unresponsive site responsive, should I expect any ranking penalties?
Hello, I have a website made with asp.net and ranking quite well for a number of competitive keywords like in google top 10 results for more than a dozen competitive keywords. Recently in order for better user experience, I am having it developed so it is fully responsive for all screen resolutions. Basically all the design element / site text will remain the same including color scheme / layout etc outwardly but internally this will change everything all the css / page html (tables converted to divs) etc. Now my question is: 1. Will this considered by bots a complete site overhaul and ranking will take a hit even if I stay with current platform i.e. asp.net? 2. While making design responsive I can also develop a wordpress theme, which will make it easier to work with the website as the site does not require any programming. So if I also change the platform like from MS IIS/asp to Apache / php how will search engine bots take this? 3. If above in fact will result in ranking drop, how much time will it take for the rankings to get back to normal? Note that I use extensionless urls so the urls will remain the same as well even if we convert from asp to php. Sorry for long details but question is bugging me from weeks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | hpk0 -
What is happening with this page's rankings? (G Analytics screenprint attached) help me.
Hi, At the moment im confused. I have a page which shows up for the query 'bank holidays' first page solid for 2 years - this also applies to the terms 'mothers day', 'pancake day' and a few others (UK Google). And there still ranking. Here is the problem: Usually I would rank for 'bank holidays 2014' (the terms with the year in are the real traffic drivers) and would be position 3/5. Over the last 3 months this has decayed dropping position to 30+. From the screenprint you can see the term 'Bank Holidays' is holding on but the term 'bank holidays 2014' is slowly decaying. If you query 'bank holidays 2015' we don't appear in rankings at all. What is causing this? The content is ok, social sharing happens and the odd link is picked up hear and there. I need help, how do I start pushing this back in the other direction, its like the site is slowly dying. And what really kills me, is 2 pages are ranking on page1 off link farms. URL: followuk.co.uk/bank-holidays serp-decay.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | followuk0 -
There's NO reason these sites should be beating mine...Or is there?
Hi Over the past 10 months, my internal page rankings (previously excellent) have plummeted. I'm now trying to recover them. I haven't received an unnatural links warning in Google Webmaster Tools. Also, I used to have hundreds of internal links to each of these 21 pages using the same exact-match anchor text eg, Tuscany real estate, Umbria real estate, etc. I changed this about 6 months ago. So why am I still ranking poorly for these (only moderately competitive keywords) behind sites with poorer metrics? 1) Keyword: lake como real estate My page here – **http://tinyurl.com/d34k8m ** -- used to rank No1 or No2 neck-and-neck with this page www.immobiliarevacanzelago.com/. He's still No1 but I’m down to about No13. Yet when I look in Open Site Explorer virtually all my metrics beat his.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeepster0 -
No longer showing for 'money' phrases but long tail combinations rank high?
I hope someone can shed some light on this as I've been pulling my hair out so much there's hardly any left! Background: 12 year old website that for about 10 years had Top 3 rankings for 100's of phrases but rankings first dropped off August 2011. Panda seemed to be the cause but finding the exact issue is hard. We are an online travel agent and every hotel page has duplicate content copied from other websites. This has not been changed although lots of sections in the site still rank well, so do the hotel pages themselves. Lots of internal duplicate issues have been resolved but with no effect. Our old style link, link, link all day long with our 2-word main key phrase as anchor text has given us an unnatural backlink profile but no message has been left by G about this in WMT (yet). Internal link structure is poor with all pages linking back to the homepage with our 'money' 2-word phrase in 3 places. Penguin wiped two thirds of all our backlinks back in May 2012. Why then, do we still rank for our 'money' phrase on the homepage when it has some extra words included and becomes long tail? e.g. CityName Apartments (money phrase) - Now ranks page 2-3 CityName Apartments to rent for the night - Ranks #2 on Google in all countries To make things more confusing other pages rank really well for similar money phrase e.g. CityName Apartments Offers - Ranks 2nd on 185,000,000 results (not homepage) It seems only the homepage is effected (where 95% of inbound links point) but if the site wide duplicates or unnatural link profile was flagged it would effect more than one page of the site. Wouldn't it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lchoice0 -
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking?
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking? or it dosen't really matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Radomski0 -
Is it worth submitting a blog's RSS feed...
to as many RSS feed directories as possible? Or would this have a similar negative impact that you'd get from submitting a site to loads to "potentially spammy" site directories?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
Our site has been up almost 2 months and no rankings yet?
Our site is www.AkinsSeptic.com. We spent a lot of time on the site and have not received any rankings yet. Can you advise as to what we can do to get this site ranked at all. I know it needs a lot of SEO work and some links, however, it should rank mildly due to the low competition of keywords we are using. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormz0