2 almost identical key-phrases with opposite ranking trajectories
-
I recently checked rank-tracking of a client's search-phrases. In Google UK variations of 2 almost identical search phrases dropped 30 places for one of these and jumped 30 places for the other. The only difference between the 2 phrases being the site's location (city) was placed first in phrase A and last in Phrase B. There were no technical or content changes on-site- How can this be?
-
I'm following up on old threads in Q&A that are still marked unanswered.. Did this continue to happen, or did it ever settle out? Did you figure out why it happened at all?
-
hi,
this is something I check weekly (more or less), and it appears to be a sudden change. We are naturally working on attracting links with good anchor-texts esp. including location, but there has certainly been no aggressive push regarding this lately. I could try the "Location keyword - Get keyword in Location" approach without it looking out of place. Normally I'm cautious regarding repeating keywords in title-tags, but in this case it could make sense...
-
How long has it been like that? Do you track daily and the trend has been up/down or is this just a spot check?
I've not seen such dramatic swings before, but it does happen. Can you add the opposite phrase in the title somewhere?
"Location keyword - Get keyword in Location"
or something similar (recommended keyword in location, buy keyword in location) without it looking out of place?
That should bring it back more in line.
Has somebody linked to you with "location keyword" anchor text to push that version up?
Or have competitors been working on "keyword location" and not the other way round?
Hard to tell really and I'm not sure how to test it
![😕](https://moz.com/community/q/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=4jds23d1a2r ":\")
-
hi, yes that is correct.
-
Hi Elias,
I'm aware that there are duplicate content issues on the site, and as I'm not a developer I'm not privy to the complexity of the problem. But, I haven't seen such a significant change for one url before, tracking two almost identical terms for the same url.
-
Do you mean that there is a single page for both these terms?
So Page A was in position 50 for "keyword + location" & "location + keyword".
"keyword + location" now returns Page A in position 80
"location + keyword" now returns Page A in position 20
-
It might well be a duplicate content issue. If you have two pages which are almost identical with the only difference being the city name. Google may have classed this as duplicate content and chosen to rank one page much higher than the other.
Like Marcus said - it would be useful to have a bit more information.
-
Hey, can you drop in the phrases and related pages? Hard to comment on the above without a little more info.
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
-
Competing Pages for Ranking Keywords?
Hey there, My client has this existing page which ranks for rentals-related keywords that are product type specific - i.e. electric wheelchair rentals, mobility scooter rentals, etc. https://mobilityequipmentforless.com/pages/rentals I recently made a rentals page for each product type to try and really target those keywords that the rentals page is ranking for. Is this a problem? Is the potential nature of the pages competing for the keywords a real issue? Any help is appreciated. Thanks! Mike
Keyword Research | | naturalsociety0 -
What should my key words be for home page?
Hey Everyone, I'm curious if anyone can provide some insight as to what my keywords should be for my website. Just as a quick heads up, my company, Back In Motion Sport & Spine Physical Therapy, is a physical therapy clinic that specializes in orthopedic, sport, and spine injuries. You can find my site here: www.backinmotionsspt.com That said, I understand about doing key word research and integrating that on the site. However, since I am a smaller practice should the end of the my key word entail my city of Fort Myers, FL. For instance, should my key words be the following: Orthopedic physical therapy Fort Myers, FL Sport Rehabilitation Fort Myers, FL Back Pain Relief Fort Myers, FL Or.... Should they just be: Orthopedic physical therapy Sport rehabilitaiton Back pain relief I look forward to hearing any and all feedback.
Keyword Research | | scottgray06200 -
Exact match keyword phrases, are they still really important to search engines?
This has been bugging me for a while now and I'd like to know what you guys think. I often find what I can only described as 'oddities' in our rankings for certain search terms. For example, we might rank top 5 for 'A5 week view diary' and then second page for 'Week view diaries A5'. (Not an actual example, I just find stuff like this all the time across our various pages) They are basically the same query, so I don't understand why so often there is such a discrepancy. I can only put this down to exact match keyword phrase still being an important ranking factor. What do you guys think? Are exact match phrases still an important part of the SERP results? Thank you. Isaac.
Keyword Research | | isaac6630 -
Ranking a homepage for keywords
We recently found a handful of keywords we would like our homepage to rank for (for example - customer experience). On our homepage we have articles (4-5 posted daily) that feature the keywords we are targeting (one being customer experience). How do the keywords we are using in our daily articles that are posted to the homepage affect the overall keyword ranking for the homepage? In other words do the keywords used in the articles (title, first 2-3 paragraphs, meta description, etc.) all roll up/build up to the homepage's keywords or how does that work?
Keyword Research | | carlystemmer0 -
Big drop in rankings, any explanation ?
Hi everybody, I've been working on the subdomain http://fr.mt.com since a few month and on the last crawl on the keyword "accessoire de mesure" i had a big drop from rank 3 to not in top 50 and I cant figure why. Here is the page : http://fr.mt.com/fr/fr/home/products/Laboratory_Analytics_Browse/Meter_family_page/Meter_Accessor.html - PA : 30 DA : 71 I did an on page report to get a grade and i got... A on this keyword. I know this page is not perfect (lack of content) but in my opinion it still relevant on this keyword. Do you have any idea of what happened ? Thanks in advance for your answers
Keyword Research | | EnjinFrance0 -
How can I do to improve ranking for head keywords?
Hi guys, I'm currently working for an italian restautant finder web site http://www.cibando.com The site currently do not rank for any of the cityName pages eventhough all this pages received a B grade in the on-page report card by Seo Moz and have a great amount of internal links. This is an example of the pages I'm speaking about: http://www.cibando.com/ita/ristoranti/milano/milano As I can changeso little on this page, I'm thinking about creatinng a new cityName page having this URL http://www.cibando.com/ita/ristoranti-milano in which I add some text about the city and the restaurants people can have dinner at and add some link to the currently cityName page and categoryCuisine page. Is it a good idea? Do oyu have any suggestions? Any expert out there give an insight? Thanks in advance. Francesca
Keyword Research | | Francy0 -
Best advice for my site for ranking better on my main keyword "Orlando Wedding Photographers"?
Hi, I run a photography site: www.joeyvalyphotography.com and my main keyword is Orlando Wedding Photographers . I have been trying to improve my rankings but i have gone no where. I would greatly appreciate some tips, on getting my site up there higher on the ranks, some day! Thanks in advanced, Joey
Keyword Research | | gaji0 -
Big difference in rank on google.com and google.no
Hi Our E-com website went from 8th to 1st spot yesterday for our most important keyword (barneklær = childrens clothing) on google.no weirdly enough we arent ranking on first page at all on google.com . I find this very strange especially since the keyword itself is so country specific - mainly because of the norwegian specific letter - æ. The results are not due to personalization i ve check it with the keyword difficulty tool here on seomoz. The sites ranking higher then me on google.com are sites i am ranking higher then on google.no. Anyone got a good explanation ? The changes for my keyword in ranking i saw yesterday was alot more then i am used to see - almost like google made some sort of script change. we went from 8th to 1st. 1st dropped to 4th, 5ht went to 2nd etc - i am not used to seeing this big changes. Anyone got a clue to either of these 2 questions ?
Keyword Research | | danlae0