Wrong page ranking even after fixes. Why?
-
Howdy,
I've read a number of posts on this issue and followed all the advice I could find. My issue is this: several of our targeted keywords have the wrong page ranking which results in a loss of conversion and high bounce rate.
I use the site:mydomain.com operator to see how the pages are ranking which I find really useful. One of our targeted keywords is 'wedding stationery' and the page which should rank is shop.confetti.co.uk/branch/wedding-stationery however this page ranks 3rd on our domain.
I've done the following:
- Optimised the correct page
- De-optimised the ranking pages
- Added links from the incorrectly ranking page to the page I want to rank using keyword anchor text
- Added internal links to the page I want to rank from high Page Authority pages using keyword anchor text
Here is a link to the SERP which shows the ranking for our domain for the 'wedding stationery' search term.
I made the changes a couple of weeks ago.
Any advice or explanations as to what is causing this would be greatly received.
Thanks in advance,
Brendan.
-
Hi EGOL,
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, redirecting the subdomain to the root isn't an option due CMS limitations. We're looking at this long term.
For now I've added a link to the wedding stationery page using keyword anchor text from every page of the subdomain including the high PA pages.
Any more ideas? It seems crazy that the homepage ranks for this term given there are no optimised links to it and the keyword appears only as links to the pages we want to rank.
Thanks in advance.
-
"Wrong page ranking even after fixes. Why?"
Because you are fixing the wrong page.
No, seriously... don't expect a subdomain to inherit much authority or linkjuice from the root domain.
If this was my site and I wanted to fix this... I would redirect that subdomain to a folder in the root and then try to rank the page in the folder.
-
Hi Mark,
Thanks for your response. The link to the "Create your own stationery" is correct as this is another of our targeted keywords.
We renamed the target page and gave it a new URL (with 301 redirects) which is why is has a PR of 0. It's actual PR will be around 3.
Your point about the subdomain is a good one so thanks for that.
Are there any more suggestions out there?
Thanks again,
Brendan.
-
Just noticed one other thing.... Your home page was actually linking to the "create your own stationary." page rather than the page you are hoping to target
Not that you should obsess over page rank but the home page is 5, page the homepage links to is 3 and the page you are trying to target is 0.
Try and sort out your internal and you might succeed, but don't do it at the expense of your page 1 ranking!
-
You still have the word "Wedding Stationary" on the homepage which is probably why the homepage is still ranking.
Also the page you are trying to rank is a subdomain so is not directly linked.
I would expect that if you go overboard on trying to swap the rankings you will lose the home page and stay 3rd page for the product page - don't do this!
Instead simply continue to build links and optimise the product page and work at getting them BOTH on page 1.
Since google changed their rules I have many serps with both the homepage and the targeted page sitting next to each other on the front page. Twice the links gives twice the opportunity for clicks. And longterm aim for the 1 and 2!
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
-
Advice on whether we 301 redirect a page or update existing page?
Hi guys, any advice would be really appreciated. We have an existing page that ranks well for 'red widgets'. The page isn't monetised right now, but we're bringing in a new product onto our site that we optimised for 'blue widgets'. Unfortunately, not enough research was done for this page and we've now realised that consumers actually search for 'red widgets' when looking for the product we're creating as 'blue widgets'. The problem with this is that the 'red widgets' page is in a completely different category of our site than what it needs to be (it needs to be with 'blue widgets'). So, my question is; Should we do a 301 redirect from our 'red-widgets' page to our 'blue-widgets' page which we want to update and optimise the content on there for 'red-widgets'. Or, should we update the existing red-widgets page to have the right products and content on there, even thought it is in the wrong place of our site and users could get confused as to why they are there. If we do a 301 redirect to our new page, will we lose our rankings and have to start again, or is there a better way around this? Thanks! Dave
Technical SEO | | davo230 -
Internal Wordpress blog ranked and not the main page
hello www.mysite.com/blog is ranked higher than www,mysite.com. i am trying to find the reason for the blog to rank higher which is not my goal. the blog reached the second page and the main domain is no where to be found. is there anything on Wordpress setup that may cause this? thanks
Technical SEO | | ciznerguy0 -
Sudden drop in ranking google.co.uk ranking
Anyone else had any sudden drops in rankings this week? Is there an update going on? One of my primary keywords has dropped from 6th to 49th in the google.co.uk search results. Not in webmaster tools to flag an issue. I have downloaded the links from webmaster and it does look if some content has been scraped and then linked back to us from a large number of sites that we have never sort links from. I have upload the google disavow link tool. Only one keyword appears to be effected not all of them? Any ideas? Thanks
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Descriptions missing from rankings associated with Google Place pages.
Can anyone help me figure out why my rankings that are associated with Google Place pages are missing descriptions? I have a number one result for the top searched keyword in my category but it just doesn't look the same without a description and I'm sure it's affecting CTR too.
Technical SEO | | glideagency0 -
How To SEO Mobile Pages?
hello, I have finally put my first foot on the path of trying to learn and understand mobile SEO. I have a few questions regarding mobile SEO and how it works, so please help me out. I use wordpress for my site, and there is a nifty plugin called WP touch http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wptouch/ What it basically does is, it converts your desktop version into a mobile friendly version. I wanted to know that if it does that, does this mean whatever SEO i do for my regular web site gets accomplished for my moible version as well? Another simple question is, if i search for the same term on my mobile phone then on my desktop how different will the SERs be? thanks moz peeps
Technical SEO | | david3050 -
Frequent updating of pages on website to rank better
Will updating each page often for example everyday or few days, rank the page and/or website better in google. The reason I ask is that I made 18 websites about three months ago and the traffic initially was alot higher and has fallen little by little thru the 3 months. Also how well my pages rank has also fallen. I just put out the websites, have done nothing else. No linking, etc. No updates. It is evident that without new links coming in, the website will fall in rank ie., link aquistion velocity But my question is if I update the pages and change content frequently will this improve my position in google and other search engines. The traffic on websites over the three months if graphed sort of looks like a stair case going down.
Technical SEO | | mickey110 -
Do 301 redirects pass page rank quickly
Hi I have been asked to carry out a site audit for a potential client. The site has that many issues I don't where to start in explaining them however, there is one question we are debating and would like to get a second opinion on it. The site I am auditing used to have a homepage rank 7. The site has currently had a redesign (new template with new URLs) and now the root domain 301 redirects to a sub folder two levels deep (not ideal I know!). This happened about a month ago and we are still getting N/A for toolbar page rank. The question is, does Google page rank transfer quicker than normal due to the redirects? or do we still have to wait on the next Google Page Rank update? Thanks in advance Gavelect
Technical SEO | | Equatorites0