Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Was moving up in SERPS then Got Stuck on Page 2
-
Hi,
I was continuously acquiring quality back-links and my site was moving up in Google SERPS for 3 main keywords. Within a few weeks i was on Page 2 and 3 for these three keywords, but after reaching there I got stuck on these pages and positions despite no change in link building strategy / pattern. I have even increased the number and quality of links that I acquire per day, but I am still stuck at exact same positions.
The website is10 months old and related to a software niche. I update this website once a week.
For one keyword I am stuck at position 1 of page two (you can well imagine the frustration..!!).
My question is that what do I need to do to get out of this "SERP lock"?
-
Thanks all for the answers.
Yes EGOL, It looks like I need to do the Jolt (rate of change of acceleration) rather than just acceleration or speed as I am up against entities having $10b+ market cap(s). These guys love to mop the serp floor using small competition.
Are there any other factors you guys consider relevant in off-page SEO, in addition to rate of increase of links/day and quality/relevance of links?
-
Hi,
This is a great question and many people find themselves right where you are. Both Ryan and Egol have provided you some great responses and I agree with them both. There is a lot that goes into whether and when your site will move up or down. Personally, I feel the closer you get to page 1 the more fine tuning and possibly effort it will take to make the leap to the top of page one.
Sounds like you are doing pretty well for a very young site. Good job and good luck!
-
Did you take physics in high school or college?
Your question is similar to..... "What is the difference between speed and acceleration?"
Just because you are "continuously acquiring quality back-links" doesn't mean that your competitors are sitting on their butts.
If you are gaining ten links per day but the guy above you is gaining twenty you will never ever catch him....
.... and if he is on the third page then the guys near the top of page two might be gaining hundreds per day.
Every time you move up a position in the SERPs the website directly above you will require a greater level of effort to defeat.
That means you gotta press the accelerator down harder and harder as you move up the SERPs. Will you have it floored before you reach the top of page two?
In lightly competitive SERPs you might be able to defeat everyone... but when you get into the heavyweight SERPs the increasing competition will at some point be more than most people can muster.
That's where you hit "SERP lock" as you call it.
Keep in mind that the people behind you are working hard too..... you might tramp the pedal to the floor and see people from behind passing you buy.
My personal opinion is... more people who hold any SERPs today will be lower in the rankings than will be more highly ranked by this time next year. Really. They are going to be displaced by existing heavyweights who are expanding their reach and new heavyweights who are starting to accelerate.
Pick ten SERPs in different niches that interest you and record who is in position #5. Then come back in a year and look for them. More will go down than up.
-
what do I need to do to get out of this "SERP lock"?
Without looking at the site and the keywords involved, we can only offer generic advice.
I would suggest examining all aspects of your onpage factors. Some specifics are:
-
page title: focus a single keyword
-
header: focus the same keyword
-
content: the first sentence of your content should also focus the same keyword
-
site internal linking: when appropriate, other pages of your site should provide links in content to other relevant pages.
-
url: clean, friendly, static urls which offer appropriate use of keywords is helpful
Wikipedia is a great example for many of the above steps.
There are other items to check. My point is link building and site promotion is an ongoing process which happens over months and years. On page changes have the ability to instantly and dramatically change your ranking. There is a good chance you are stuck due to onpage factors.
-
-
Could you let us know the URL and the keywords you're targeting?
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
-
Is it ok to repeat a (focus) keyword used on a previous page, on a new page?
I am cataloguing the pages on our website in terms of which focus keyword has been used with the page. I've noticed that some pages repeated the same keyword / term. I've heard that it's not really good practice, as it's like telling google conflicting information, as the pages with the same keywords will be competing against each other. Is this correct information? If so, is the alternative to use various long-winded keywords instead? If not, meaning it's ok to repeat the keyword on different pages, is there a maximum recommended number of times that we want to repeat the word? Still new-ish to SEO, so any help is much appreciated! V.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vitzz1 -
Category Page as Shopping Aggregator Page
Hi, I have been reviewing the info from Google on structured data for products and started to ponder.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alexcox6
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/products Here is the scenario.
You have a Category Page and it lists 8 products, each products shows an image, price and review rating. As the individual products pages are already marked up they display Rich Snippets in the serps.
I wonder how do we get the rich snippets for the category page. Now Google suggest a markup for shopping aggregator pages that lists a single product, along with information about different sellers offering that product but nothing for categories. My ponder is this, Can we use the shopping aggregator markup for category pages to achieve the coveted rich results (from and to price, average reviews)? Keen to hear from anyone who has had any thoughts on the matter or had already tried this.0 -
Multiple pages optimised for the same keywords but pages are functionally different and visually different
Hi MOZ community! We're wondering what the implications would be on organic ranking by having 2 pages, which have quite different functionality were optimised for the same keywords. So, for example, one of the pages in question is
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TrueluxGroup
https://www.whichledlight.com/categories/led-spotlights
and the other page is
https://www.whichledlight.com/t/led-spotlights both of these pages are basically geared towards the keyword led spotlights the first link essentially shows the options for led spotlights, the different kind of fittings available, and the second link is a product search / results page for all products that are spotlights. We're wondering what the implications of this could be, as we are currently looking to improve the ranking for the site particularly for this keyword. Is this even safe to do? Especially since we're at the bottom of the hill of climbing the ranking ladder of this keyword. Give us a shout if you want any more detail on this to answer more easily 🙂0 -
Page Title shown in SERPS not the same as
Hi all, I'm trying to get a homepage to rank for a certain term, but the page keeps showing up in the SERPS with the "Brand Name: Keyword" when I have written it as "Keyword - Brand Name" in the <title>tag. I can't even see "Brand Name" Keyword" in the code of the page so I don't know where Google is pulling this from? </p> <p>I have <meta name="robots" content="noodp,noydir"/> on the page.</p> <p>I'm running Yoast and have removed the Brand from the Site Name and the Page Title for the homepage is "Keyword - Brand Name" in WordPress. I've changed the meta description so I can see the page has been crawled and re-indexed as the new meta description is showing in the SERPs</p> <p>Any idea, where Google is pulling this Page Title from and how I can get it changed to read the actual <title> tag? Or is there something I need to change in WordPress?</p> <p>Thank you!</p></title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marketing_Today0 -
Why does Google add my domain as a suffix to page title in SERPS?
Hi, If I do a search in Google - for one our products on our site, our site comes up - but it would appear that google is adding our domain name as a suffix to our title in the results... Anyone else seen this? Can I do anything about it? I would prefer it not to appear. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bjs20100 -
How to clean up a SERP?
I have a new customer and he wants me to clear up the SERP for his branded keyword, the SERP currently has his site and two other sites related to him under his result... Under that is bad reviews and old reports. My client does own the top spot (#1) for his branded name. My client has a: linkedin facebook twitter myspace I was thinking to push all these to the first page, this will clear up some of those bad reviews. What are your thoughts? Have any of you ever had this type of case? I need to get 6 different sites to all rank for the same exact key term, however I have the top spot to link from...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODinosaur0 -
301 - should I redirect entire domain or page for page?
Hi, We recently enabled a 301 on our domain from our old website to our new website. On the advice of fellow mozzer's we copied the old site exactly to the new domain, then did the 301 so that the sites are identical. Question is, should we be doing the 301 as a whole domain redirect, i.e. www.oldsite.com is now > www.newsite.com, or individually setting each page, i.e. www.oldsite.com/page1 is now www.newsite.com/page1 etc for each page in our site? Remembering that both old and new sites (for now) are identical copies. Also we set the 301 about 5 days ago and have verified its working but haven't seen a single change in rank either from the old site or new - is this because Google hasn't likely re-indexed yet? Thanks, Anthony
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Grenadi0 -
Website stuck on the second page
Hi there Can you please help me. I did some link building and worked with website last couple of months and rank got better but all keywords are on the second page, some of them are 11th and 12th. Is there anything I did wrong and google dont allow the website on the first page? Or should I just go on. It just looks strange keywords are on the second page for 2 weeks and not going to the first page for any single day. The website is quite old, around 10 years. Anyone knows what it is or where I can read about it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fleetway0