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
-
Keyword keeps fluctuating between a high rank and no rank?
I've searched around and I can't seem to find anyone else describing the issue I'm seeing. Basically for a very long time our website (snappages.com) has always ranked in the tens and twenties for "create a website". It's a high volume keyword and we get a lot of traffic from it. Around May 16th it suddenly disappeared completely from search results on Google and now it will sporadically show back up with a SERP in the twenties every 5-10 days for a few hours and then completely disappear again. This pattern has continued to this day. I've checked and there are no manual penalties and nothing has really changed dramatically from a content perspective or anything like that. I would understand if we got penalized and our ranking dropped, or even if it just completely disappeared? This is the only keyword that this is happening for, all the others remain unaffected. Anyone know how I can find out why this is happening or have suggestions on how to fix it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stestone0 -
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 I undo a 301 redirect? Will it penalize my ranking?
I'm in charge of building a website for a company that made a mess. They own domain xxx.it (xxx is not the real domain, just a placeholder). Some years ago they 301 redirected xxx.it to xxx.com (they just changed TLDs). Last year they 301 redirected xxx.com to yyy.com (so, they actually changed domains). Now, after 13 months, the company failed and the new leadership wants me to undo everything and 301 redirect from yyy.com to xxx.it. So: 301 redirect is permanent. So, conceptually it's wrong to undo it. What happens if I undo it? Will my ranking be penalized, even if a significant amount of time has passed (13 months)? Will crawlers detect a loop (even if i remove any 301 redirect from xxx.it and theorically break the loop)? Here is the potential loop: xxx.it -> xxx.com -> yyy.com -> xxx.it -> etc... All of the articles I found on the web are quite old and not clear about this topic, that's why I'm asking this question.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | naska19900 -
Homepage not ranking for main keyword, all other pages ranking slightly for their own keyword phrases.
Dear Mozzers, We have an ecommerce website (www.pashmina-boutique.com), we want to rank the homepage for the keyword "pashmina". Problem is, we are nowhere to be found, not even in the top 100 search results of Google. It is indexed, we have no crawl errors, except that we had some problems with our hosting (503's), the crawler of Google bumped in a few of those. And we are fixing it. Our other pages, e.g. (http://www.pashmina-boutique.com/15-white-pashminas) ranks for "white pashminas" 24th and "white cashmere pashminas" 23rd. We have done no linkbuilding, in Majestic, you can check that. We have been offline for a long time (over 6 months) and about 3 weeks ago, we did a redesign (SEO). We relaunched, everything is looking fine except the homepage isn't ranking for the main keyword. Could you guys check it out? Is it over-optimization? It can't be Penguin, Panda would be a surprise too. Or do we still have to wait for the monthly Panda data-refresh? We are currently busy with this issue, once this is solved - that the homepage is ranking - we will start linkbuilding. Mr.1000
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mr.10000 -
SEO and Internal Pages
Howdy Moz Fans (quoting Rand), I have a weird issue. I have a site dedicated to criminal defense. When you Google some crimes, the homepage comes up INSTEAD of the internal page directly related to that type of crime. However, on other crimes, the more relevant internal page appears. Obviously, I want the internal page to appear when a particular crime is Googled and NOT the homepage. Does anyone have an explanation why this happens? FYI: I recently moved to WP and used a site map plugin that values the internal pages at 60% (instead of Weebly, which has an auto site map that didn't do that). Could that be it? I have repeatedly submitted the internal pages via GWT, but nothing happens. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
SEO for interior page
Is it possible to be penalized on an interior page but not the whole website? Here's why I ask, I have a page: www.thesandiegocriminallawyer.com/domestic-violence.html that is not ranking well (p. 21 of Google) while the rest of the site ranks well (b/w p.1 to p.3). I checked the link profile in opensiteexplorer, ahrefs, and majesticseo but can't find any problems. I have also checked the HTML code, CSS, keyword optimization, but can't find any problems there either. Can anyone give me insight into why this might be happening? Of course, I'm working under the assumption that this page SHOULD be ranked higher for "San Diego Domestic Violence Attorney" - at least higher than page 21.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrodriguez14400 -
Why is this site not ranking?
http://www.petstoreunlimited.com They get good grades from the on-page tool. The links are not amazing, but are not super spammy. Yet it ranks for nothing they target Any reason why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atomicx0 -
Can changing dynamic url of over 2000 pages site after a year will change its ranking
Hi- Have built site in joomla The urls are dynamic in nature with over a year - all pages are well indexed and backlinks been built over with these dynamic urls Need to know if i hire an agency to change over dynamic url to static url of these 2000 pages - will it also change all Search engine ranking positions of existing urls Will all the seo effort and backlinks build over 15 months will still hold valid or this will just back to square one due to change of urls is it advisable to get the url changed from dynamic to static one - especially when site is receiving over 75,000 visitors every month Thanks in advance. Look for expert suggestions
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0