Homepage ranking above category page, but no keywords in there! Why?
-
So...we have a 5 year diary product page at TOAD diaries. It's had a lot of on page treatment: keyword in title, alt text, decent copy, pictures of the product etc. Find it here - http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/5-year-diary
So we rank 22nd for 5 year diary, but google sends the customer to the home page! There no mention of 5 year diaries on there. Seems ridiculous! I can't help but think we should rank better for this as it's a low difficulty term (according to keyword difficulty tool on MOZ).
Any thoughts on why this might be?
Oh, Google HAS indexed the 5 year diary page. Used a search operator to check that first (thanks to you guys on here:) )
Thanks.
-
Understood. Thank you so much Andy. This info is invaluable to use as a small company.
Isaac.
-
Hi Isaac,
A link from the homepage would be good - build it into the content somewhere though. The same goes for links from other pages.
Yes, you can tell Google that 404 pages have been fixed, if they are just pages that you have removed. Just remember to make sure no other pages or links lead to these dead pages, as that can cause issues.
-Andy
-
Hey thanks Andy! Still quite new to this.
It seams wired though because 5 year diaries are a quite unusual 'long tail' type product. The search intent is clear, they want a 5 year diary. Not any old type of diary. Anyways, really appreciate the response.
So perhaps have a link from the home page? And add internal links from say the "multi year" category? Hmm all so mysterious
Another quick question if I may? If I update the site via webmaster tools all the 'dead links' should be sorted right?
Isaac.
-
Hi Isaac,
It isn't always about exact page matching in this manner - Google knows that a diary and 5-year diary are related and will deliver the page that they think is best suited - in this case, the homepage. However, I would be tempted to look at internal linking from the homepage to the 5-year diary page, and perhaps other related pages from within the site. It's all about creating a self-explanatory structure that gives weight to a page.
You could also look at strengthening this by building some backlinks to some of these internal pages too.
Also, you have a dead page that Google has indexed at the moment: http://www.toaddiaries.co.uk/shop/5-year-diary/castelli-5-year-diary
-Andy
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
-
Need help on declining page rank
Hi Guys,
On-Page Optimization | | Slideuplift123
We had a consistent page ranking for a specific keyword between 5 and 8 positions on google. This week all of a sudden the page which was ranking for that keyword no longer ranks for it and another page has started ranking for that keyword that too at 20th position. I am so confused why has this happened? I didn't do any changes to that page or to the now ranking page. Can anyone help why could this be happening?0 -
Do product sub-categories compete with top level categories for rankings?
Hi All, This question is for an eccomerce site with a very large sku count (over 3million individual sku's). As the person responsible for SEO on the site, I am often playing catchup to some of our web merchandisers. My question is this: Will creating sub-catagories that have a page title and H1 tag that include the top level category name plus a refinement be competing with each other and the top level category for rankings? The products that I am specifically talking about are Funko Pops! (some of you might collect them). There are different sub-sets of Funko Pops such as Funko Pop!: Rocks, Funko Pop!: Movies, Funko Pop! Television ect. Im worried that if I create many pages with these titles/h1 tags that they will end up competing for the query "funko pops"... something I worked hard to rank above Amazon for. Any thoughts would be appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Jason-Reid0 -
Front page, keyword strategi?
Hi, Should the front page target a mixture of the most important keywords for the whole site (on page optimization)
On-Page Optimization | | Agguk
Or should we choose 1 or a few that are extra important/natural and optimize for this?
Each important keyword already has it´s own dedicated page (single keyword optimized)
...so either way the front page would "compete" against another internal page on a specific keyword, but maybe that´s the wrong way of looking at this?
Almost all external backlinks are pointing to the front page so I guess that´s the real strength of the front page but it does not provide in depth good value for a specific keyword. Thanks!/Anders0 -
New Page Not ranking?
One of this client's top keyword is "oak beams". They already rank well in the UK for other related terms like "reclaimed oak beams" at /reclaimed-oak-beams/ and "air dried oak beams" at /air-dried-oak-beams/ We have created a page at /oak-beams/ but this page ranks nowhere? Instead the reclaimed oak beams or air dried oak beams page ranks for the term "oak beams". Any ideas why Google is swapping between those pages and not choosing the /oak-beams/ page? A few notes are that the /oak-beams/ page is newest page on the site and yes I know there are no links pointing to it but there are no links pointing to the other pages either?
On-Page Optimization | | Marketing_Today0 -
How do I create multiple page URLs that are optimized for location and keywords that may be overlapping or the same?
Hi guys, I am attempting to create unique URLs for several different pages on a website. Let's say hypothetically that this is a website for a chain of Ice Cream Shops in Missouri. Let's say they have 15 locations in Springfield, Missouri. I would ideally like to optimize our Ice Cream Shop's in Springfield, Missouri with the main keyword (ice cream) but also the geo-specific location (Springfield), but we obviously can't have duplicate URLs for these 15 locations. We also have several secondary keywords, think things like: frozen yogurt or waffle cone that we can also use, although it would most likely be more powerful if we use the primary keyword. Any suggestions for how to go about doing this most effectively? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | GreenStone0 -
What's better for SEO a page per review or a page with all reviews?
Was wondering what's better for SEO. We have a platform where consumers can read and write reviews. But the question is: is it better to give one page per company with all the reviews on it? Or should we have different pages for the specific company? Example: Itunes has a company page with all reviews on the page, but not the whole review. You have to click further to view the whole review (new page), at the moment this the current situation. What if we place the whole reviews on the company page, so you don't have specific pages for the reviews? Hopefully can someone help us out. Contact me if it's not clear or you want more extended information. Kind regards
On-Page Optimization | | MozzieJr0 -
Sold Products appear as duplicate pages 'Page Not Found' ???
Hi there, I'm down to just 6 duplicate page warnings but I'm not sure how to deal with this one: Information Page Not Found! http://www.vintageheirloom.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=6 My Ecommerce shopping site products are unique, 1 of a kind. So once one product has sold and been delivered we take the product off our website, hence the Information Page Not Found! As I understand when search engines re-index these warnings will drop off but new sold products would replace them. So redirecting seems like hard work and never ending. Is it ok to ignore these warnings? Thanks Mozzers..
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Picking a Keyword to optimize for home page
Hi there, I have chosen a keyword for a bunch of my top pages based on relevance, traffic, competition etc, and am tracking in the Tool - so far so good. The issue I am having is with picking a keyword or phrase for the home page - all the suitable keywords I seem to have been allocated to 1 particular sub pages - basically product pages... Anyone come across this issue? Basically any keyword or phrase that I think might be suitable for the home page, I find a more precise page beneath the home page.... Help gratefully accepted!
On-Page Optimization | | inhouseninja0