Nothing I Know About SEO can Explain these Rankings?
-
Hi all,
I have a client who wants to rank more prominently for "plastic surgeon jupiter fl", a key term in his niche that attracts 11-50 searches per month (but these are potentially big ticket clients).
If you look at the first page of results for that term, I can't make any sense of them. I've checked page speed, Google listing optimization, on-page SEO, link metrics etc. and there seems to be no correlation with good on-page SEO, quality links (or volume of links). Any thoughts??
I literally cannot explain why the #1 site shows 2 inbound links via Moz OSE and almost no on-page SEO to speak of while sites ranking page 2 have better on-page SEO, more links, higher quality links (from what I can tell) etc.
-
Hey Muzzmoz,
This is a little outside of my area of knowledge, but I asked around our team and got a recommendation of Open SEO Stats as a tool, which links to the Whois information for whatever you're looking up, surfacing domain age. I hope this recommendation helps
-
Hey Miriam,
I'm currently doing an audit for a client and would like to include domain age in comparison to competitors. Can you recommend a reliable source?
I have used this site (http://checkpagerank.net/index.php), but I've noticed at lot of sites coming up blank for domain age recently, which I'm guessing is related to PageRank data no longer available?
Would also be interested in what other high level domain/link authority metrics you would recommend? I currently use:
- MOZ (DA and PA), as well as root domains and total links, plus
- ahrefs (DR and UR), as well as referring domains, backlinks, keywords and organic traffic.
-
Hey Ricky!
Good that you are looking into that. I see 2 good things, searching remotely:
-
From my location (far away) your client is #7 in the Local Finder view in Maps, so at least they are in the running to improve.
-
I see the two big clusters on Maps from which Google is drawing most of the top 10 local results, and the good news is that a second competitor Aqua, is in your client's own cluster and is ranking #2 locally, so this would indicate to me that there is no geographic barrier to your client moving upwards.
Yes, I'd work on getting some more native Google reviews in the coming few months. I notice on the website for your client, you are mentioning some high level news connections. Have you earned links from them, by chance? Links can move the needle when little else can.
-
-
Hi Miriam,
Thanks for the feedback! I had looked at that also and there seemed to be no rhyme or reason based on location bias from what I could tell. The client Im working on is DrBafitis.com (should be top of page 2 for that term). The competitive analysis I performed covered the following items without helping me understand this SERP much at all...
- Page load speed (mobile and desktop)
- On-page optimization elements
- DA/PA + # of inbound links to page and domain
- Google Listing optimization, location, category selection and reviews
- Depth/length of information on pages
- The ranking page (home or other page)
I'm guessing this is a just a very clustered field in terms of competitors all having stats in the same ballpark. We'll just keep pulling the levers on user experience, page content and link outreach until we see some impact!
Thank you
-
Hi Ricky!
Sounds like you are working on a thorough competitive audit (which is the right thing to do and which I can't replicate here in the forum) but I will tell you one very interesting thing I see about that #1 local and organic ranking competitor (Allure). Go look at where their building is located on G Maps. Then, open a second G Maps tag and look up Jupiter, FL. Do you see where the word Jupiter is on the map? That's the 'centroid', and interestingly, that is right where this business happens to be located. The centroid doesn't typically override other factors (like domain authority, NAP consistency, reviews, etc), and the effect of the centroid should typically be even less powerful on the organic results, but in this case, since you've asked why that business is number one, I find it pretty interesting looking at their location.
Without knowing who your client is, I can't make a comparison, and it's totally fine if you're not authorized to share that info here, but I'd do the same search for your client that you did for Allure and see how they stack up.
Also, don't forget 2 factors: age and freshness. How long has that website been established and how frequently do they publish new content? Then, of course, there are reviews. Allure is strong here in the local finder view, but they aren't blowing the field away. Some lower competitors, in fact, have a few more reviews.
As I mentioned, a thorough audit is the only answer here. But, I thought the above factor worth mentioning.
-
Hi @RedSweater,
From what I understand, mobile-friendly is a pass fail. But, as mentioned I have checked load speeds on mobile and desktop and that doesn't seem to be a factor either as top ranking pages perform poorly.
-
Any chance the top-ranking organic sites have a higher mobile-friendly score? That's about the only other thing I can think of besides CTR.
-
Thanks for the input, the client does have a Google business listing, good reviews, they are located in the target city etc but I was referring more to the normal organic results (not local pack). Looking at Moz keyword explorer SERP data, site load speeds, etc. I can't for the life of me come up with a good reason to explain why the ranking sites are doing so well.
-
For that search, I see 3 ads, then a local pack of 3, then organics and more ads. The organics include 2 of the 3 local pack.
Two theories: one, the top results may have the best clickthrough rates - not something you'll be able to prove or disprove. Two, it appears as though for the local pack Google is trying to display several results from a small geographic area. I'd make sure the client has a map listing. Hope that at least sparks some ideas for you.
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
-
International SEO Options?
Hi we currently have a site which is a example.com domain in the Australian market (we have geo-targeted to Australia within search console). We are looking to expand to United States. I have added the potential options down below, just wondering which one you guys think would be best from a SEO and practical standpoint? Or if there are other options i should consider? Option 1 The Australian domain is strong so this option takes this into consideration. Keep example.com (Australian) Add on: Sub-Directory for US Which would be: example.com/us/ In Search Console set the sub-folder to target US and also setup hreflang tags. Setup the US site on the sub-directory. Option 2 Add sub-folders for both Aus and US example/au/ (Australian)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jaynamarino
example/us/ (United States) Setup hreflang targeting. Cons
Need to set up redirects for the current site to new location which is .com/au/ might also see drop in performance due to redirects. Cheers.0 -
In our reports we get alt tag errors for our banner images. We are unable to add alt tags to the banner images as they live inside CSS. We can add a title tag on the div title for the banner. Does that help with SEO and accessibility?
We are unable to add alt tags to the banner images as they live inside CSS. We can add a title tag on the div title for the banner. Does that help with SEO and accessibility?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Shirley.Fenlason0 -
Can the Alternate/hreflang tags harm SEO?
Hello, Recently one of my regional websites, targeted for Denmark (xxxx.dk (TLD)), received a manual penalty from Google, specified as “pure spam”. The reason for this (as I suspect) can be the fact that the Danish site’s content, is fully translated from English, on the main site (.com). To fix that problem with Google, I want to use the “alternate/hreflang” tags on both sites
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda
URL’s (the main and the regional), before submitting it for a second review on WMT. Following this, I would like to ask you few questions: 1. Is there any RISK in using alternate tags between two sites (a “healthy” site to the one that got the penalty), Can it harm the SEO of the main site (.com)?
2. Once done, Will it resolve my problem with Google? Will they remove the manual penalty?
3. Based on your experience, would you recommend me to rewrite all the content on the Danish site, instead of just translating it (the current status)? Would love to hear your opinion on those issues. Thanks a lot!0 -
What can you do about negative SEO?
We have a list of 240 domains (look exactly the same) linking to our site for a certain keyword. over 3000 links in total. It means that 50% of our keywords are this keyword and it's not a branded keyword which can affect us in the long term. I have done a WHOIS search and found a name, email and number. Vikas Kumar. I linkedin searched him and found his "legit" SEO site which has EXACTLY the same registration details as the spam sites. I emailed him and he said it would cost 5$ a link removal. I phoned him and he DENIED these emails. He then denied owning these sites etc. We have disavowed them but the anchor text % is still affecting us. Is there anything we can do? I know negative SEO isn't illegal but it's really frustrating. Anyone else had any problems with this type of thing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyB_UK1 -
Images and SEO
Hi, I would like some opinions on the topic of using images for SEO. I have come across a few sites that I see have very few backlinks, but have decent pagerank and seem to rank well for certain keywords. One such site I looked at had very little content other than tons of images (It was a joke blog that focussed on funny images, funny pics etc) and now I am starting to question whether hotlinking images assists in SEO? are there any benefits to having someone using one of your images (hosted on your site) ? I do recall reading somewhere that someone hotlinking an image is akin to a link. Any truth in this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rightmove0 -
Glossary SEO Tactics
A B2B client has a glossary of about 300 terms on its Website. It was done to enhance SEO value. The pages are rarely viewed and the text is often short. What are the best (and wackiest!) ideas to leverage this content for SEO. Here are some: Add videos, images Cross link to content pages Open up comments and get students in this sector to review terms and add their own What else do you suggest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HarrAuto0 -
Rankings Dropped
Hello, I wonder if anyone can point us in the right direction. Our main domain name has got a good SEO profile the domain is 12 years old and we have some good reputable links. On the 7th of Jan our website dropped in the rankings from 3rd to 10th for one of our main keywords and from then onwards some of our other keywords have dropped. We have a lot of landing pages that target specific keywords which look like a template page but just with the content changed. Can anyone pin point what could of caused this problem or has anyone experienced this before and knows how to fix it. I personally think we have been hit by the panda. Thanks, Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
How can I change my website's content on specific pages without affecting ranking for specific keywords?
My client's website (www.nursevillage.com) content has not been touched for 4 years and we are currently ranking #1 for "per diem nursing". They do not want to make any changes to the site in fear that it might decrease our rankings. We want to try to use utilize that keyword ranking on specific pages (www.nursevillage.com/nv/content/careeroptions/perdiem.jsp ) ranking for "per diem nursing" and try redirecting traffic or placing some banners and links on that page to specific pages or other sites related to "per diem nursing" jobs so we can get nurses to apply to our new nursing jobs. Any advice on why "per diem nursing" is ranking so high for us and what we can change on the site without messing up our ranking would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ryanperea1000