Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How does this site rank higher than a seemingly better one??
-
Ok, I'm really trying to wrap my self around all this SEO stuff. Right when I think I'm grasping it, I come across something like this.
When running a keyword difficulty report for the term "essay editing", the top two results are:
www.papercheck.com/essay-editing.html
www.gradesaver.com/essay-editing/
The first result has a PA of 37, 2 linking page domains, DA of 48, and 197 root linking domains.
The second has a PA of 65, 32 linking page domains, DA of 68, and 2,572 root linking domains.
What the heck is going on here!?!? I can't understand it. I checked anchor text and that doesn't appear to be it. The only thing I can find is that the papercheck has a link from a site (marketwire) with a DA of 90 while the #2 guy's highest linking domain has a DA of 60.
However, I have a really hard time wrapping my head around this considering the total linking domain stats compared to one another.
Any insight is much appreciate... this is frustrating trying to grasp these situations!
Thanks!
-
You're not considering a lot of factors that go into SEO:
-
Page speed could be better on #1.
-
Over optimization on page 2 - with many links with anchor text that includes "editing"
-
"editing" appears 80 times on page 1, 66 times on page 2, despite page 2 having more text. I'm not saying this is a case of keyword density/spamming it, but maybe they're on the line and #2 is under it.
-
Better overall inbound link authority to #2 possibly.
-
Page 2 has repetition of both keywords in the title. Google already punishes this if you don't have noODP by replacing your title with a more suitable one. They aren't big fans of duplication but even so, #2 has a much different title.
-
Co-citation. Even with a better DA and PA, the related inbound links may be more relevant to essay editing on page 1. Also, more domains may point directly at the subpage essay-editing.html than they do the absolute page at /essay-editing/index.php
-
Analytics matter. If #2 bounce rate is double #1, and the time on site for #1 is 4 minutes longer per visitor and they get more traffic through an email list that actually stays on site, they'd have a natural boost in the "analytics" department, as well.
There are always a million reasons why one site could or may outrank another. All you can realistically do is improve your site as much as possible, create relevant links back, get citations that all match, engage on social and have a site that responds well when people click it.
-
-
The seo moz stats for a site is not the exactly same as what google uses to determine authority/trust so just because one seems to have more authority does not mean google thinks it is more relevant.
Hence why even some new sites with minimal back links can outrank some very trusted sites on the same topic.
Welcome to the wonderful world of seo, strap in and get comfortable because it's a never ending journey.
All the best
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
-
Redirecting dofollow, high-domain-authority links from one site to another: good idea?
I have two sites that offer help for freelance writers. The first gets almost no search traffic and is very low priority for me. The second is my main priority and gets substantial search traffic. The low-priority site has a significant number of dofollow backlinks from high-domain-authority sites. Is it a good idea to 301 redirect these links to similar/related posts on my high-priority site? Would this potentially boost the SEO of my high-priority site? Thanks for any help!
Link Building | | John88990 -
Spammy links redirecting to homepage of site -
Hey guys, I'm auditing a website at the moment and Moz is showing a few spammy links linking to it. The problem is these domains are all 301 redirecting to the domain I'm auditing. Let's say I'm auditing Site A. Site B is been flagged in Moz OSE with 12 spam flags. When I try to open Site B in a browser, it redirects back to Site A. What's the best thing to do, here? Disavowing domains redirecting to the site is surely a bad idea? Cheers.
Link Building | | BrianYork-AIM0 -
Need advice: How to replace a high-ranking pdf with a landing page -- without dropping much in rank?
Hi! We have a pdf of a white paper on our site that ranks #1 for a niche term. We are now exploring the idea of building a landing page for this paper with an overview (2-3 paragraphs) and a registration form for interested parties to fill out in order to access the paper. Do you think there'd be any hope of ensuring the new landing page would rank almost as well eventually (top 3)? I'm thinking a key consideration would be preserving the link juice from the existing links that are coming into the pdf, and that 301 redirecting the pdf URL to the new landing page URL could help with that. Am I right? Or would it be better to try to reach out to the linking sites and ask them to update their links (seems daunting). Any advice/opinions on this situation would be appreciated. (If folks think that there would be a significant risk of permanently dropping out of the top 5 by attempting this, we would likely choose to leave the pdf ungated as is.) Thanks!! -John
Link Building | | jomosi0 -
Does embedded content (from my site) help seo
hi i am creating a new accommodation site and will have some great videos on it (fly bys of local beaches and virtual tours of hotels etc). from an seo perspective i have two questions: 1. should i host on my own site or youtube/vimeo - its a new site but in the long run i want my site to get the credit 2. i will be giving the hotels the chance to embed and video content i have on their own sites. does this help my own seo juice and if so is there a particular way it should be done. there will be around 90 well established local hotels in total so figured it should add up.
Link Building | | neilhenderson0 -
Drop in Rankings After Removing Links
So I removed some links to a particular homepage for one of the sites we own, this page had A LOT of links pointing to it using exact match anchors. And for the most part the links were coming from low quality pages/content. After removing a good chunk of them I noticed are rankings went down from around 8-9th two weeks ago to 21 as of today. Has anyone else had a problem like this before? I'm thinking about restoring some of these links now to see if I can recover some of that. Any thoughts on doing this? Thanks
Link Building | | ThridHour0 -
How to add extension to my site on the organic result ?
Hello, i am trying to add extensions to my site on the organic result. i just wandering if it can be done from the google web master tool or i need to contact my web developer? leKJK0z
Link Building | | steve2150 -
Link building for a product review site
I'm doing SEO for a product review website, and I'm curious what link building opportunities are best for this category. Assume only the following: The website is basically a blog Most of the articles are reviews on cosmetic products, though there are also articles regarding news, product roundups, tips&tricks and similar content The website is in a local, non-english language Disregarding low-value opportunities such as directories, what kind of websites should I aim for outreach purposes? So far, I'm thinking the following: Product manufacturers (very low success chance, as the review site is fairly new and in a localized language) E-commerce sites selling the products (average to low success chance, since a lot of them use CMSes that might not allow integration of a review) Other cosmetic blogs, particularly for guest blogging (average to low success chance, since the website is fairly new) Any ideas would be appreciated, thanks!
Link Building | | mihaiaperghis0 -
Why is my Page Rank 0.
Hi, I am trying to understand why my Page Rank is 0. Many forums say that it is because my site has been blocked by google. Any help with this would be much appreciated. http://davincidrivers.com
Link Building | | MariaPerrone0