Does Keyword Tracker rank eBay links as weaker competition than they actually are?
-
This might be a confusing question but hopefully I can explain it well enough and someone is able to understand where I am coming from.
I have used the Keyword Analysis Tool to search the keyword "alice in wonderland fancy dress", the results come back saying that the competition for this keyword is 24%, which I consider to be pretty low. When I look at the Page Authority, Page Linking, Domain Authority and Domain Linking of each site which rank in the top 10 for this keyword I see that places 4 - 7 are taken by eBay links. I then look at the bottom three places (8 - 10) and although their Page Authority and Page Linking is not very high, their Domain Authority and Domain Linking is reasonable. Based on the results I have seen for other keyword, who's overall competition % was higher than 24%, I thought to myself that these bottom three links were actually quite strong, which made me ask the question "why has this keyword got a competition % as low as 24%?". I then wonder whether it was because the Keyword Analysis Tool ranks the eBay links as weaker competition than they actually are?
My question to you guys:
Does Keyword Tracker rank eBay links as weaker competition than they actually are? Or can anyone explain why the competition % for this keyword is so low but the bottom three links are actually relatively strong? And how do the eBay links rank higher than these bottom three links? Yes the eBay links are relative to the keyword but these eBay links are ranking higher solely on the fact that the Domain Authority is so high and have very little SEO in relation to the keyword, does Google not recognise that the bottom three websites would be more beneficial to customers than the eBay links? And if the eBay links are ranking so high solely on the fact that the Domain Authority is so high then shouldn't they be in the top 10 for almost every product related keyword?
Thanks in advance.
-
Conner,
From Moz's documentation on the Keyword analysis tool, it analyzes the distribution of page authority and domain authority of the top 20 results in Google for your query so it's not just looking at the first page results but basing it's score on the results on the first two pages. The keyword difficulty score is by no means perfect and int this particular search it may be starkly obvious which factors are more dominant in composing it. I would see that as an opportunity to better understand what is required by your site to rank more highly for your query.
What scores are possible?
We break up keyword difficulty levels into a number of ranges:- 76%-100% - Extremely Competitive: These are among the most challenging keywords to rank for. On-page optimization, massive link strength, and high domain authority are necessary to achieve top ranking positions.
- 51%-75% - Highly Competitive: Powerful sites with strong pages tend to dominate these results. Links in quantity and quality (at both the domain and page level) are required to earn top rankings.
- 26-50% - Moderately Competitive: Search results in this category require high authority domains with well-targeted pages OR lower authority sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results.
- 0-25% - Non-Competitive: Keywords in this range tend to have less powerful sites/pages in the top results. Rankings are achievable by pages on low authority domains with good on-page optimization and light link metrics
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
-
Fresh Web Explorer: Will frequent posting of relevant links to own content in comments of blogs and articles hurt rankings?
Fresh Web Explorer finds daily about 10 articles/blog posts where I could post in comment section a relevant link to content on my own website, which I really belief may be of interest to many readers of the articles. I would like to do this for the traffic that these links are generating to my site (intention is not ranking improvement).
Moz Pro | | lcourse
Would I need to be concerned that it could affect negatively my ranking if I post so many times links to my own site in the comment sections and also considering that I would always link to the same about 5 landing pages on my site? To give some context. The site for wich I want to build links for is long established PageRank 6 site with legit links from about 1000 different root domains. I would only post to articles published within last 48h. Would I need to be concerned about the frequency of the posting and if so, any ideas what may be a reasonable frequency to post my links?0 -
My home page has an "A" rank in Moz and not ranking in Google.
My home page recently dropped from page one in Google to not being ranked for my top keyword. The page has an "A" ranking in MOZ for the keyword. Is there a way to find out the cause. I did have what looked like a duplicate page for a while 3 months ago when a domain was forwarding to my home page incorrectly. Appeared with second domain name instead of primary. Our business has been 95% through internet leads so quite an issue. Is there anyway to find out what is going on.
Moz Pro | | FredRoven0 -
What's the best way to keep track of keyword rankings
Here's the deal. I keep track of my keyword rankings with the help of Rank Tracker from seopowersuite.com for the most part. I ran it on a daily basis and my keyword was not in top 100 for a few months. Moz.com panel shows pretty much the same (not in top 50) for the same months. That said, if I check that keyword ranking in my Google Webmaster Tools (avg. position) it says that its position (ranking?) was on average: 49, 7, 7, 8 (for the last four months). So, I'm not sure how it's even possible? How come Rank Tracker and Moz don't see any rankings and Google gives me sorta decent avg. positions at the same time. I assume that avg. postion means that same as avg. ranking, right? I'm not sure what I'm missing here.
Moz Pro | | VinceWicks0 -
Checking multiple keywords in Rank tracking
Besides the rankings in the campaigns i want to check 100+ keywords at once in rank tracking. Is this possible and if not why? It says i can check 400 keywords a day but manually entering them is time consuming and that's exactly why i use SEOMOZ, to save time.
Moz Pro | | FindFactory1 -
Keywords Data Tool: Why is volume metrics unavailable for all of my keywords?
When I use the SEOMoz Pro Tool for Keyword Resarch, I get the notice that the tool is getting improvements. But when I run my keywords all of the volume metric data is unavailable. Why is this?
Moz Pro | | seocoppercupimages0 -
Does anyone know why some keyword rankings go from nowhere in the top 50 to ranking 1st to then nowhere in the top 50 in the space of 3 weeks?
SEOMOZ told me to ask the question here because they say their ranking programme now works correctly and the problems I was having before with keywords changing so dramatically, even though nothing had been changed with regards to optmisation, is now to do with google rather than their ranking tool do google really change their algorithms on a weekly basis so that rankings can go up by more than 50 to ranking 1st to then going down by more than 50? Any hints or tips from anyone on I can keep the rankings more consistent (maybe dropping or increasing by one or two places week by week rather than changing by over 50 positions?)
Moz Pro | | KateNZ0 -
Why are results different on Rank Tracker tool and New Rankings Weekly Reports?
Good Morning... Every week i get an email from SEO Moz that is showing me where the keywords i am tracking are currently in the SERPS (New Rankings and On-Page Reports)... Is there a reason that the current rank shown on these emails would be so different than what is shown when i use SEO Moz's rank tracker? For example, it shows one keyword has a rank of 48 (via email) and a rank of 16 through the rank tracker. What would cause such a great discrepancy? Thanks
Moz Pro | | Prime850 -
Keyword Difficulty Tool. Why my rank is low?
Keyword Difficulty Tool. Why my rank is lower than competitors even though I have higher numbers? Can somebody help me understand this... take a look at screenshot. http://www.traxnyc.com/images/keyword_difficulty.jpg What should I do to get to number 1 position? Keyword: Hip Hop Jewelry My Website: traxnyc.com
Moz Pro | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0