We are being penalized for one specific key word (and phrases it appears in), how can we figure out why?
-
Overall our SEO efforts have worked well, slow and steady increases in rankings across the board for all products and categories, EXCEPT for one particular brand name. Key words and phrases for that brand consistently under perform all other key words and phrases. Strategies etc. are the same, and we have not received any notifications about 'manual action' but I'm convinced there is something affecting our ranking on that brand. This has been going on for approximately two years, prior to that we ranked very well for this brand.
What sorts of tests can I run to try and find the problem?
-
Problems like this can be really hard to figure out. But, in my experience it is quite uncommon for a site to get any sort of penalty or demotion for a particular keyword.
I think that sometimes it can look like a particular keyword is demoted when the page previously had rankings that were propped up by the power of links that are now being detected as unnatural.
Sometimes when there is just one keyword that is not doing well, I look at the possibility of keyword stuffing. The keyword stuffing algo runs continuously and can indeed cause a particular page to not rank well if it thinks it is keyword stuffed. And in my opinion, it's not always consistent how Google determines keyword stuffing. There are plenty of keyword stuffed pages that still rank. And often two pages that look similar can be affected in different ways. But still, this is something to consider.
-
The above answers are excellent. Cross checking algorithm updates would be first point of call. On a granular have you undertaken a backlink audit for the specific page that is not ranking ? Reviewed anchor text, quality of links to that page etc? Have you made a comparison analysis of backlinks to competitors for the comparable page?
Hope that assists.
-
Hi there
I would take a look at Google's algorithm changes and line up when you saw these rankings/traffic drops. That will inform you if you need to do a backlink audit or content audit. I would also take a look at the pages from a competitor standpoint to see what they may be doing that's helping them rank.
There are a lot of ways you can optimize for eCommerce. Here are some resources that will help you:
The Ultimate Guide to SEO for E-commerce Websites (Kissmetrics)
Thin & Duplicate Content: eCommerce SEO (Inflow)
The Definitive Guide To Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization (Neil Patel)I would also recommend Schema on every product, as well as breadcrumbs, reviews. This is an immense help when it comes to search! BuiltVisibile has a great resource here as well (thanks to Erica for the heads up!)
It may also be that the keyword/brand is a very competitive space and that's just the way it is. In that regard, I'd look into ways you can build your domain and page authority to give you a little more edge in competing for your desired keywords and queries.
Let me know if this helps! Good luck!
-
Only us, and the other websites which are ranking well for the same brand are competitors with us across many other brands, product types etc. where we are very competitive against those sites, and are ranked higher on most of the other key words/phrases.
-
First, I'd note that using the same strategy for similar keywords doesn't necessarily mean they'll have similar results. Sometimes, keywords need very different strategies, content-association, and have different competition / difficulty.
Is it only you who are having ranking issues for this brand, or are other websites having the same issue?
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
-
Is it a good idea to 301 redirect one same niche site towards another site for seo benefit
Hello friends, I have 2 android niche sites, one site is running on a technology dropped domain i catch 1 year ago it has, almost 400+ domains linking to different parts of the site, the other one i established from scratch and both are running from jan 2015. Now i want to redirect first site which already has 400 links pointing towards it to the home page of my 2nd android site. Is it a good idea to do so and does it give any boost in terms of seo?
Algorithm Updates | | RizwanAkbar0 -
How can I use Intuit without getting duplicate content issues
All of my Intuit site show duplicate content on the index pages. How can I avoid this
Algorithm Updates | | onestrohm0 -
Recovered from penguin/panda but which one?
So the good news is that for the first time since April 24th, one of our websites is back in the search results as of around December 12 but I am still unsure as whether it was panda or penguin (or both) that was impacting the site?? Note this was not a manual penalty. I diagnosed it as a penguin issue (drop on April 24th, aggressive on-page optimisation, around 10% of links from spammy directories like addyourfreelinks.com with anchor text built by a questionable agency), but on further advice it was thought that panda was also an issue because it is a hotel microsite so there was duplication with our own brand site and across third party travel sites and there were a number of pages with bare content. I figured it was a good time to clean everything up to address both. Here is a summary of actions taken: submitted disavow file on October 24th with all questionable links including actions taken and comments. Since then I have cleaned up some content so it is less aggressively targeting certain keywords. Amended several third party listings with duplicate content No follow,indexed pages that were directly duplicated with our brand site and over the last month have built a few good quality links. Cleaned up 404's in webmaster tools over the last week I have searched to see if there were any algorithm updates around December 12 but cannot find any mentions. Thoughts?
Algorithm Updates | | jay.raman0 -
How can the same key term change positioning seasonally impacting some companies and not others?
The company I do SEO work for is a vacation rental company. Through research, reports, and crunching numbers I've discovered the seasonality of the buiness (when what we do is a popular search and when it is not). The problem I've encountered is that our average position for google seems to follow this exact same seasonality, but only for us. What I mean is, as the season for looking up vacation rentals in our area fades away we take a serious nose dive in our positioning, yet when the season comes back we once again are first page. The other interesting fact is this isn't happening to the other companies who are in the same area. How can the same key term change positioning seasonally like that and impact some companies and not others? Can you give me some insights into where to at least look or pursue? I should have started with you guys, but I had so far spent 4 months trying to get answers and so far I've come up with nothing more than guesses and frustration. Please help me.
Algorithm Updates | | SSRMarketing0 -
Can you compare overall search volumes year on year for specific terms?
Hi. I was wondering whether anyone knew if it is possible to compare search volumes for keywords year on year for absolute figures (so not using Insight). For example: How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.11 - 1.4.11 Compared to How many people searched for computer mouses from 1.1.12 - 1.4.12
Algorithm Updates | | SEOclient120 -
Do search engines penalize for too many domain aliases?
I have a main domain name and 20+ related alias domains pointing to it. Is there a danger, penalty or concern that I should be aware of related to alias domains? I saw something on Google "Apps Administration" under "What is a domain alias" saying "you can add up to 20 domian aliases" but I don't use Google Apps. Please advise... Thank you, Chris
Algorithm Updates | | caliboyz0 -
Can someone explain a few hopefully simple questions for me please
Hi everyone First off for local seraches I rank very well pretty much all on first page and high up too. I am also attempting to rank well for the search term 'independent mortgage advice' I currently rank third on page 2 for the above search term. I am happy with this progress as the site is only 3 months old. I am UK based, have a .co.uk domain and although my site server is located in Germany (1and1) I have changed the geographical location in webmaster tools. My competitive domain analysis gives me the follwing results: Domain Authority: 14 Domain MozRank: 2.44 Total Links: 110 Ext. Followed Links: 19 Linking root Domains: 13 Followed Linking Root Domains:9 Linking C-Blocks: 8 Compared to my competitors around me these figures are terrible so why am I doing relatively well and how can I increase some of these figures such as Domain Authority & Domain Mozrank? The page I'm referring to is http://www.keystonemortgages.co.uk I am a novice so please don't mind calling me a numpty if it appears obvious to you Jason PS is it frowned upon to post links with title keywords here?
Algorithm Updates | | JasonHegarty0 -
Are we penalized if our meta description is longer than 150-160 characters?
I've read on other SEO sites that description can be 350 characters or 60 words long. Some of my descriptions are a little bit over those numbers. Will Search Engines stop crawling through the description at after a certain amount of characters, or will it completely ignore it if it's too long, hence hurting my site's SEO performance?
Algorithm Updates | | jmbuytaert0