Why is our login page ranked higher than our homepage?

[kevinzh]

Hello everyone,

When you search "ProtonMail", our Login page always ranks #1 while our homepage ranks #2. We're unsure why this is happening. The PA for our homepage is higher than the login page, and the login page itself basically has zero content except for a login form. We don't want to put the login page on robots.txt, we want to do our best to preserve it so that people can login. However it still does not make sense to us how the login page ranks higher, even though it has a lesser PA.

I'd appreciate any help or advice you might have.

Thank you.

[EcommerceSite]

I have no evidence of this but maybe Google is taking into account your clickthrough rate. If people search "ProtonMail", and almost always go to the login page they might have bumped it up.

[MattAntonino]

I actually think the result makes sense. If you do a Google search for Protonmail (or Hotmail or Gmail) are you most likely:

a) a current user who wants to login

b) a new user searching only for the brand keyphrase?

Your login page is most likely to be the page someone is searching for. Nearly every big service I could find worked this way with the exception of ebay. On a search for Hotmail, the first result is "Sign in"

Nearly everyone in my family types in the website they want to visit and searches Google for it. It drives me NUTS but it's how they browse. I've watched my brother type "facebook" into Google more than I care to admit. But from a user point of view, that's an "address bar" so I typed in Facebook. I want to go to "the Facebook" to see my friends.

I think that's why login would be a preferred page by Google. They expect most people searching to try you would be searching protonmail reviews, protonmail vs gmail, things like that. They wouldn't just search the brand unless they already know you. And of those who know you and are Googling you, most want to login.  Make sense?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I honestly wouldn't consider this an issue. You're login and homepage rank at the top. I would let the nature of the SERPs run it's course.

That being said, I would include a link (other than the logo in the upper left hand corner) to the homepage of sort on the login page. That way you cater to two users - the ones who want to login and the ones that want to learn more about your services.

Also, between you login and homepage, I occasionally get a 408 error when clicking through. I attached a screenshot below. You can learn more about those here.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

ygfQGil

[kevinzh]

Thank you for the response Patrick!

We do have several sitemaps and a sitemap index set up at https://protonmail.ch/sitemap_index.xml, and our homepage is given the highest priority.

We'll have to look into disavowing spammy backlinks and see if that helps.

If we put the login page on robots.txt to prevent google from indexing, and then reversed the process to allow google to index it again, do you think it would reconcile the problem possibly? I have a feeling the reason why the login page is kept at that rank is due to the history of that link, because the homepage used to link directly to the login page, however it no longer does (sign in is integrated on homepage), except for the footer.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I wouldn't be too alarmed, you will find this with some searches for email providers:
Yahoo
Hotmail
AOL

I noticed you don't have a sitemap, I recommend creating one and give the most priority to the homepage. From there, I would upload those to both Google and Bing. This will help crawlers understand the website in importance.

I would also take a look at your backlinks - your site (especially your homepage) seems to be getting quite a few spammy backlinks - example. Look which ones can be removed or disavowed.

Try this method and let me know if you see any changes. Hope this helps a bit! Good luck!