My DA keeps going up, by my rankings keep falling.
-
Hi,
I manage a few clients, but the one that is in reference to this question is a local law firm. They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks. Their domain authority keeps rising, but they continue to lose rankings for tracked keywords. Has anyone else faced a similar situation? Does anyone one know what is causing this or what I can do to combat it?
Thanks,
-
While I do often look at Domain Authority, I see a LOT of cases where DA doesn't tell the whole story. DA is Moz's best replication of PageRank. But, because no one outside of Google knows how they calculate PageRank, it's not always going to be equivalent.
There are a lot more things that could be done for this site, especially in terms of on-page SEO. The home page title tag is "Home | Brand" It's quite important to have some keywords in the title tag. Similarly, take a look at the above the fold content of the home page. I see an image (logo), followed by some navigational buttons and then the most important text on the page says:
Real Experience. Practical Solutions.
When Decisions Matter.Below that are a few buttons that do actually contain some keywords.
My point is that there is very little on your home page that gives Google the context of what you want this site to rank for. I am betting that changing the title tag and writing some above the fold text that concisely explains what the firm offers and also contains a few keywords would make a difference.
Those were just a few things I saw on a quick look. It might be worthwhile to do a thorough site quality audit as a next move. On-site changes can really help move the needle.
-
They have some "category" type pages on their website, such as this one about "family law".
http://www.stockandleader.com/personal-law/family-law
This page only has a yada yada yada paragraphy on it.
These pages would become much stronger in the SERPs for industry category keywords, and a useful starting point for visitors, if all of the blog posts for that legal category were linked to from these pages. These types of pages can serve as gateways to the expertise areas of the firm if they link to all of their related content.
-
Here is the link to the blog: http://www.stockandleader.com/blog.
Actually, we have been advising that they try to write using language that could be understood by people outside of the legal industry - as this is their main target.
I don't think other law firms would ever link to their blog, as lawyers are super competitive and do not want to send users to a different law firm, even if it was 1000 miles away. I used Open Site Explorer to see what links their competitor has, and they have very similar links - local newspapers, magazines, sponsorships, directories. The one core difference that I saw was that their competition was linked as being "local" law firm in completely different states. For example, they are based in PA, but were being linked to as a local law firm in a directory for VT and MN law firms. They are not a national law firm, so this should not be happening.
-
That is quite a bit of blogging. They should have a couple hundred blog posts at that rate. Are these blog posts of high enough quality to attract links from other law firms, law schools, legal sites, etc.? If not, then I would suggest posting less often and with higher qualilty.
-
They have been blogging for years, often 3 - 4 times a month. There have not been many negative backlinks. I just added that information so that you would know that there are not any bad backlinks.
-
Here is some information that might be helpful to those trying to respond....
**They blog on a regular basis... **
How long have they been doing this and what is the rate? If they have been making one post per month for four months, that isn't enough to move the needle. Also, are the posts yada yada yada content or are the good juicy legal stuff that citizens, other law firms or law schools will link to?
we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks.
Where are these coming from? How do you know they are negative and not simple spam?
-
"They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks" - That would be your issue no doubt. Robgerbot is cleaver but he can't see what links you've disavowed. I've seen a lot of people deleted what they think is bad links but in fact had no problem at all. This means Moz and alike can see them however Google doesn't and thus doesn't discount.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Google ranking content for phrases that don't exist on-page
I am experiencing an issue with negative keywords, but the “negative” keyword in question isn’t truly negative and is required within the content – the problem is that Google is ranking pages for inaccurate phrases that don’t exist on the page. To explain, this product page (as one of many examples) - https://www.scamblermusic.com/albums/royalty-free-rock-music/ - is optimised for “Royalty free rock music” and it gets a Moz grade of 100. “Royalty free” is the most accurate description of the music (I optimised for “royalty free” instead of “royalty-free” (including a hyphen) because of improved search volume), and there is just one reference to the term “copyrighted” towards the foot of the page – this term is relevant because I need to make the point that the music is licensed, not sold, and the licensee pays for the right to use the music but does not own it (as it remains copyrighted). It turns out however that I appear to need to treat “copyrighted” almost as a negative term because Google isn’t accurately ranking the content. Despite excellent optimisation for “Royalty free rock music” and only one single reference of “copyrighted” within the copy, I am seeing this page (and other album genres) wrongly rank for the following search terms: “free rock music”
On-Page Optimization | | JCN-SBWD
“Copyright free rock music"
“Uncopyrighted rock music”
“Non copyrighted rock music” I understand that pages might rank for “free rock music” because it is part of the “Royalty free rock music” optimisation, what I can’t get my head around is why the page (and similar product pages) are ranking for “Copyright free”, “Uncopyrighted music” and “Non copyrighted music”. “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted” don’t exist anywhere within the copy or source code – why would Google consider it helpful to rank a page for a search term that doesn’t exist as a complete phrase within the content? By the same logic the page should also wrongly rank for “Skylark rock music” or “Pretzel rock music” as the words “Skylark” and “Pretzel” also feature just once within the content and therefore should generate completely inaccurate results too. To me this demonstrates just how poor Google is when it comes to understanding relevant content and optimization - it's taking part of an optimized term and combining it with just one other single-use word and then inappropriately ranking the page for that completely made up phrase. It’s one thing to misinterpret one reference of the term “copyrighted” and something else entirely to rank a page for completely made up terms such as “Uncopyrighted” and “Non copyrighted”. It almost makes me think that I’ve got a better chance of accurately ranking content if I buy a goat, shove a cigar up its backside, and sacrifice it in the name of the great god Google! Any advice (about wrongly attributed negative keywords, not goat sacrifice ) would be most welcome.0 -
Moz Pro recommends not using a keyword more than 15 times. If there is a lot of content and the density is low, is it okay to go over that?
From MOZ on-page grader... "Recommendation: Edit your page to use your targeted keywords no more than 15 times." But if I use a keyword 50 times and the keyword density is only 2 percent, is that ok? What is more important, the raw number used or the density?
On-Page Optimization | | Jeremy-Marion1 -
Google search result dramatically dropped with drop in DA.
It looks like on 11/13 by site traffic dropped by like 75% and it just happens to coincide with the MOZ DA dropping to. Anyone else see this?
On-Page Optimization | | Motom70 -
Understanding why our new page doesn't rank. Internal link structure to blame? + understand canonical pages more.
Hi guys. Sorry it's an essay...BUT, i think a lot of you will find this an interesting question. This question is in 2 (related) parts, and I imagine it would be an 'advanced' SEO question. Hoping you guys can help bring some real insight 🙂 Always amazed at the quality for this forum/ community. **Context... ** We had a duplicate content issue caused by this page and it's product permutations, so we placed canonical tags on all the product permutations to solve it. Worked a treat. However, we now have more **product ranges. **We now sell Diaries, Notebooks & Music books, which are clearly different from one another. So...we've placed canonical tags on all the product permutations leading back to the 'parent' theme. In other words, all the diary permutations 'lead back' to the diary page. All the notebooks permutations 'lead back' to the main notebook page. So on and so forth. Make sense so far? Context end..... Issue. Amazingly our Diary page outranks our notebook pagefor the search term 'Design your own Notebook'. The notebook page is well optimised for this search term, and the diary page avoids the word 'notebook' altogether (so no keyword cannibalisation going on). Possible reason? Our Diary page has a vast amount of internal links to it throughout our site. The notebook page has only a few. Could this be the issue? If so, what reading/ blogs/ content/ tools would you recommend to help understand and solve this problem? i.e) Better understanding internal link structure for SEO. 2nd part of the question (in the context of internal linking for SEO). When there are internal links to a page with a conical tag does that 'count' towards the 'parent page', or simply towards that specific page? I really hope that makes sense. If it's clear as mud just shout. Isaac. EDIT: All pages in question have been indexed since we added these changes to the site.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Is there any use in reducing organic bounce rate if they are going to leave anyway?
Is bounce rate itself an important factor? For example if my page which shows pricing for a service ranks high, people usually come to that page, then go to the contact page to see where I am. Most of them then realise I'm not close enough and exit. Now, I could give these people that info on the pricing page but that would drive my bounce rate up. Does it make a difference from Google POV?
On-Page Optimization | | Cooper10 -
I have seen zero movement in my Google keyword rankings.
I have seen zero movement in my Google keyword rankings, but I have seen movement on the other search engines. I must be doing something wrong. Any tips?
On-Page Optimization | | LindaWolfe0 -
Will "internal 301s" have any effect on page rank or the way in which an SE see's our site interlinking?
We've been forced (for scalability) to completely restructure our website in terms of setting out a hierarchy. For example - the old structure : country / city / city area Where we had about 3500 nicely interlinked pages for relevant things like taxis, hotels, apartments etc in that city : We needed to change the structure to be : country / region / area / city / cityarea So as patr of the change we put in place lots of 301s for the permanent movement of pages to the new structure and then we tried to actually change the physical on-page links too. Unfortunately we have left a good 600 or 700 links that point to the old pages, but are picked up by the 301 redirect on page, so we're slowly going through them to ensure the links go to the new location directly (not via the 301). So my question is (sorry for long waffle) : Whilst it must surely be "best practice" for all on-page links to go directly to the 'right' page, are we harming our own interlinking and even 'page rank' by being tardy in working through them manually? Thanks for any help anyone can give.
On-Page Optimization | | TinkyWinky0 -
Website redesign: site going from .php to .html
A site I'm working on is being redesigned because the current platform does not allow for content to be changed easily. In the process, they are going from .php to .html. I am concerned about their losing link juice. Can a site work with the old content remaining .php and the new content being .html or should all pages stay .php?
On-Page Optimization | | cakelady0