Google is showing the "wrong" page in the serps for user queries

[cdnventure]

Our site, cpuboss.com has two main types of pages: comparisons of CPUs, and pages about individual CPUs.

When I google search for "fx8350", a keyword for the cpu "AMD FX-8350", I hoped to see our CPU page ranking, instead I see a comparison of this CPU against another.

http://i.imgur.com/QwNczDj.png?1 (Our page ranks #5)

Any idea? Many of our comparisons rank for CPU keywords, when I think it'd be a better experience for the user if our cpu pages ranked instead.

This particular CPU page is linked to on our homepage with appropriate anchor text, and linked to on that comparison also.  I would have hoped the relevance of the cpu page to this keyword would be stronger than the comparison page, and google might use that relevance signal to show the user the right page.

thoughts?

[zeepartner]

Cool, I'd be interested in the outcome! Let us know how it went:)

[cdnventure]

Thats a great idea, I'm going to try that. I think I'll get some descriptions written up for some CPU pages, and leave others without and compare how they do, see if rankings change.

Thanks!

[zeepartner]

Oh yes true, now I see it. You linked to it 21 times, so actually this now looks like you linked too much!

But like you've said, I think relevance is key. Try to add a little bit of content to the CPU page. A quick unique description of it or so. See if that helps. I guess you might have to test a few different approaches to see which ones work. This is actually a really interesting case.

[cdnventure]

Hi Miki, thanks for the response.. just playing devil's advocate here, the site's homepage has a higher page authority than the comparison, and more external links, so would we expect it to show up in the SERPs instead of the comparison page?

This is a class of problem, it seems to happen with keywords for every CPU, so I'd have to implement your solution of building links for hundreds of pages.

Aren't links typically created by third parties? Or do you create all your own links to your site?

[cdnventure]

Hi Moosa, I'm a bit confused.

There are many pages on the internet that are better results than my comparison page, yet they do not show up, because they are not about the cpu.  I'm pretty sure we should be focused on relevance here, not authority.

I don't really have any control of how often other people +1 a page, or link to a page.  As it happens this comparison page has been +1'd more than the cpu page.  I don't see how that is related to google showing a user a relevant page.

Sure, I could try to get this product page some more +1s, but as I mentioned to Philipp, this is a class of problem, e.g. all my cpu pages have this issue, they don't show up in the serps and instead a comparison of the cpu vs some other cpu shows up in instead.

For example, the site's homepage has more +1s and links than the comparison page, it also has a bit of content about the fx8350 on it, yet google is not showing the homepage in the serps for this query.

[cdnventure]

Hey Philipp, thanks for the response.  The Comparison page does link to the CPU page many times with the text "FX 8350", also with "AMD FX 8350".

Keep in mind this issue exists for all the CPU pages (over 200), and each CPU of course is searched for by users with a variety of keywords.

[MoosaHemani]

Completely agree with Philipp’s strategy plus you can also share the page on social media forums (Google+ specially) and get some +1s for that page to let search engine know what is the better result for users!

Linking from the page that is ranking to the page that you want to be ranked is also a good idea to be implemented!

[zeepartner]

What works pretty good for me usually is linking from the page that does (but should not) rank to the page that should (but does not) rank, using the anchor text you want to rank for.

In this case this means linking from the comparison page to the CPU page with the anchor text including "fx8350".

[JMacSupply]

Well, the comparison page has a page authority of 32 while the product page only has a page authority of 21.

This is the most important factor.

THe comparison page also has external links from PC Gamer, and Bit-Tech - while the product page has zero external (followed) links.

I would try to build some external links to the product page.