Can someone explain how a site with no DA, links or MozTrust, MozRank can rank #1 in the SERPs?
-
I do SEO for a legal site in the UK and one of the keywords I'm targeting is 'Criminal Defence Solicitors'. If you search this term in Google.co.uk this site comes top www.cdsolicitors.co.uk, yet in my mozbar it has 0 links, 0 DA etc, I noticed it top a few weeks ago and thought something spammy was going on; I thought if I was patient, Google would remove it, however it still hasn't.
Can someone explain how it is top in the SERPs? I've never seen this before.
thanks
-
Hello Friend!
Could be a stretch but since the SE can't read the flash version and that is the only version with domain authority the only thing they would be seeing is the title which is Criminal Defence Solicitors which could cause the SE to find the site most relevant? I'm not sure, it looks very strange, good luck on your quest for knowledge though!
Justin Smith
-
There's a few likely explanations, but it's hard to know for sure which of these (or what combination) is at work.
#1 - They redirected other pages/sites to this one recently and Linkscape hasn't yet seen it (or they're hiding it from all bots except Google/Bing). That could explain the fast rankings on a low quality site, and why we haven't seen any links to it.
#2 - The site recently started gaining links that are helping them rank that Linkscape has yet to catch. This is certainly possible, as the latest index launched earlier this week with data crawled the first 2.5 weeks of November. Lots of spammy sites will often get ranked based on crap links for a few days or weeks before being caught and pushed out of the SERPs. The next Linkscape update (likely mid-end of December, possibly as late as early January) should show it. You might also check Majestic's "fresh index" which doesn't offer metrics, but does have pretty fast updates.
#3 - The site's doing something very shady (cloaked redirects as mentioned above or links that only the engines' bots can see).
Hope that helps!
-
I initially thought it was anomaly also, however it's been hanging around for almost a month now.
I just would've expected it to drop some rankings already, wouldn't you?
-
but it's not an exact match domain!
-
well check out how many exact match domains rank #1 with no PR
-
Well, I don't think there is any SEO going on. That site has not been made to be more accessible to search engines (or users), however still ranks number one.
The exact match title, domain age and legit info on the site appear to be the only significant factors as I don't see a much else going on
I'm not convinced they're doing anything dodgy though, just lucky.Possibly an anomaly or perhaps as other factors catch up with it the site will drop in rank.
-
Thank you both for taking the time to answer however I'm not convinced with your answers. Domain age by itself is not really a powerful ranking factor (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/domain-age-how-important-is-it-for-seo/7296/); if a domain has been around for a while it's generally acquired authority through links and social shares, these are the key factors with domain age.
The title does match the keyword I'm searching but there is absolutely no other content on the page.
SEOmoz may not be Google but it's only a pagerank 1 site according to my SEO book toolbar.
It just doesn't seem right, and I'm convinced there is something spammy going on here. If this is legit SEO, why isn't everyone doing the same?
thanks again
-
Well, the simple answer would be that SEOmoz isn't Google.
Just because SEOmoz haven't crawled any relevant links, etc doesn't mean that Google hasn't.
It is a horrid little site though, the HTML version has "INSERT TEXT HERE" all over it. I would say activitysuper may be on to something with the domain age, plus the fact that it's for a real company (lots of contact info).
-
Well the domain was registered in 2004, its using a .co.uk domain and its title tag is exactly the term.
I think the age of the domain is playing a big part of it.
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
-
Does .me takes more time to rank than .com?
Hi, our company website is about freight forwarding, and im feared about .me extension they have taken. The location is for Dubai and the website is running google ads with a no-indexed landing page. I have the doubt, that our cargo company based website shipwaves.me is not receiving Google ads attention in that case. Besides, the other confusion is shipwaves.me takes time to rank for the keywords with high search or not other than .com extension. I'm confused why this company has taken, .me extension and anybody got the idea- is this .me is a top-level domain or it takes more time than .com domains.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LayaPaul0 -
Links on Brand Banners
Hi, For one of our ecommerce clients, we have brand banners on each brand page that links to their most popular product lines. Some of the banners just have a column of links, and some are paragraphs with copy and anchor text. Example below: Brand Line 1 Brand Line 2 Example 2: For the utmost in quality, performance and comfort, purchase Brand Line 1 . Brand Line 2 offers the perfect ease of use for beginners while not compromising on quality. Obviously these are just examples, and there are several links (more than 2) per brand, but I was wondering if this harms SEO in any way because of keyword stuffing? It makes sense to have the brand name in the link, otherwise the name of the lines might not make much sense (an example of this is one of the lines is called 849.. so without the brand name that doesn't mean much and looks weird) Do you think it would be better to have the links in just columns in the first example, or in paragraph format?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AliMac260 -
Link Building vs. Straight Earning Links Discussion
Hello, I'd like to start a discussion on link building outreach techniques vs. just building a good website with good 10X content. I don't like to receive unsolicited emails in my inbox, so why should the people in my industry? Also, I've seen plenty of evidence of 10X content soaring without link building outreach. But link building isn't dead of course, so can you tell me your personal experiences either way and the ethics of what you do? I especially want to hear if you've had luck with just building good websites and being successful based on the content itself, but an open discussion of either side is welcome. Leaning towards just building good websites and letting the Google algo do it's thing. Would love to hear your experiences either way. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW3 -
Disappearing Links Black Hat ?
I have seen reports of Black hat spamming with dodgy links but we have another issue with a clients site. The site had a small number of solid following links about 60 which had been in place for years and in the past few weeks all but those directly under their control have ceased to link. At the same time a very aggressive competitor has entered their market which is owned by the officers of an SEO company. Could it be that they have somehow disavowed the links to the site to damage it how do we find out? there are now just 10 following links?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Main keyword decline in SERPs ranking :-(
Hi Moz, My very humble attempts at SEO has been doing very well for over a year with the keyword phrase 'vintage chanel bags'. Recently, about 3-4 months ago I noticed it dropped from rank 1 to rank 5. I've slowly but steadily been building up more social marketing interaction (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram mostly), brand awareness in company is increasing more searches for 'Vintage Heirloom', great in-links from reputable companies & bloggers. What I'm confused about is that one of our competitors Rewindvintage now appears as no.1 for this keyword but tracking with Moz every metric we outperform them on, namely domain authority & Page Authority. I have noticed they have 4 anchor text links (dubious quality wordpress comments), with the anchor term vintage chanel bags and we have none despite ranking no. 1 for so long?? I'm trying to use the Moz science here, just a bit confused. Any help, insights, similar experience would be much appreciated. I engage only in white hat and look for slow & honest SEO growth (as far as I'm aware ! ). Thanks for looking Kevin
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Link Wheel & Unnatural Links - Undoing Damage
Client spent almost a year with link wheels and mass link blasts - end result was getting caught by google. I have taken over, we;ve revamped the site and I'm finishing up with onsite optimization. Would anyone have any suggestions how to undo the damage of the unnatural links and get back into googles favour a little quicker? Or the best next steps to undo the damage.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ravynn0 -
A domain is ranking for a plural key word in SERPs on page 1 but for the singular not at all?
What could the reasons that a domain is ranking for the plural version of a key word on SERPs page 1 and for the singular version not at all? Google knows that both key words belong together, as in the SERPs for one version also the other version of the key word is being highlighted. If I search for the domain with the plural keyword it shows up on the first page in SERPs, but If I search for the same keyword as singular (in German it is just removing an “s”) I see the plural version highlighted many times but I cannot find my domain. What could be the reason for this behavior? penalties?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SimCaffe0 -
How much pain can I expect if I change the URL structure of the site again?
About 3 months ago I implemented a massive URL structure change by 'upgrading' some of the features of our CMS Prior to this URL's for catergorys and products looked something like this http://www.thefurnituremarket.co.uk/proddetail.asp?prod=OX09 I made a few changes but din't implement it fully as I felt it would be better to do it instages as the site was getting indexed more thouroughly. HOWEVER... We have just hit the first page for some key SERP's and I am wary to rock the boat again by changing the URL structures again and all the sitemaps. How much pain do you think we could feel if i went ahead and optimised the URL's fully? and What would you do? 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | robertrRSwalters0