SERP and SEO Moz ranking
-
Until a couple of months ago the predicted SEO Moz ranking for a specific keyword was fairly close to what I actually experienced with my website. However, since then the correlation has not been good. For example, according to SEO Moz I am ranked #1 for a specific keyword with google.ca and google.com yet my site actually shows up consistently at #3 for that keyword. Has anyone else noticed this divergence?
-
Great suggestion EGOL!
There are generally two reasons folks see different rankings than what is reported in SEOmoz
1. Personalization and localization. SEOmoz takes great pain to remove the influence of both localization and personalization from it's rankings, but these all to easily slip into our browsers and Google's default settings when checking rankings. Make sure you check your rankings with personalization turned off (or in some sort of incognito mode) and set your location to the country wide setting (United States)
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-personalized-search
2. Universal Results - This has to do with the way rank is counted when influenced by things like sitelinks, video results, image results, blended local rankings and so on. The list of variables is long, but a full explanation can be found here:
https://seomoz.zendesk.com/entries/20933146-universal-rankings
-
Seems for me that it also counts the Google Places locations numerically. It can make your rank look bad but it is also the reality of what people see before they find you. The stand alone Rank Checker tool always seems to give the right SERP over the one given in the weekly search. Yes, there is always a variable in rank but that seems to be the case with every tool out there. Again the research tool Rank Checker is always spot on for me.
-
Several people each week visit Q&A to ask why their Google rankings do not match the SEOmoz data.
These two website ratings are based upon different variables.
I would like to see SEOmoz have an obvious link on the results page of their tool that clicks to an explanation of what their results really mean and why they don't match Google's rankings. Would save lots of people lots of concerns and be a great way to educate on the value of their data.
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
-
About porn sites and ranking
Hello, I'm thinking to extend my website into porn. At the moment there is no pornography on it, although we do talk about sex related topics and products (from dating to tutorials, to toys etc.) Would it be dangerous to keep the porn section on the same domain as the rest? Would this negatively affect my non-porn content as Googlebot would "flag" my website as being pornographic (although only a few pages would be)? Or simply Googlebot would leave the current non-porn pages ranking as they are now, just fine, and plus it would rank the porn pages if they "deserve" to? I hope my question is clear. I don't want to create a subdomain.
Algorithm Updates | | fabx0 -
Is user engagement a ranking signal?
Read something about user engagement might be a signal that Google uses, along with links and on-site optimisation, to decide if a search result goes up or down. What should I believe and what are the developments in this field?
Algorithm Updates | | MozzieJr0 -
Staff Dumbfounded by Rankings Drop - Please Help Us Understand!
We are completely dumbfounded by the amount of organic traffic we lost virtually instantly back on Aug 22 2012. We are spending much more money advertising as of late but took another massive plunge since rolling out our newer site redesign this past sat 04/13/13. The newer and more updated version of our site seems to all of a sudden have us dropping like a rock again! Our developers and in house SEO guy that is in house here seems to think our content is ok and that our PR and page authority is ok as well. However they have told me it isn't good per-say, but not the reason in their opinion for our sites drop in rankings instantly. We've seen tons of keywords drop 22-40+ positions in google. We've been online since 2001 and I've never seen anything even remotely close to this. Didn't seem to see such an impact with bing or yahoo though. Due to our rankings being slaughtered we decided to hired WebIMAX to come in and figure out what happened. They informed us that we must have been hit with the panda filter they collectively guessed. Said our content was fair lol. They done allot of tests without anything really indicated the real root cause of the problem and most every major change they requested we made. However we've changed the site design and layout now and changed much of the content and overall structure to be better we believe and we for the life of us cannot understand the massive unexplained penalty. I attached an image which illustrates our dramatic drop in traffic. Bare in mind that as traffic drops we spend more $$$ advertising so mere traffic numbers don't even really say it all. Our organic results are really down maybe 60-70%. We really thought WebIMAX would be a big help and give great assistance and insight. I didn't see any of that and I think our IT staff agrees. We paid big bucks for nothing in return it seems. However we are desperate and are actually considering staying with them even though they've produced zero results or maybe negative results. In fact with all that was done over weeks and weeks with WebIMAX we continued to DROP in organic results. We don't know if we should go back to them, choose another SEO company or just go on trying to fix this issue ourselves. Website is http://www.cruizinconceptswholesale.com/ We just want someone that knows what they are looking at to say hey I see something Major Right Here. If we could get that then we would simply fix it. Thanks in advance for anyone willing to help us out with their expert knowledge and I think I would trust the community here more than WebIMAX easily! David. cruizin-traffic-image.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | David_C0 -
How to show your ratings in the Google SERP
I've noticed that some organic search results are showing ratings just above the meta tag. How are these sites doing this? Example: If you search "cash advance", there is a result between #4 and #6 in the organic results. The site is "goldcashadvance.com". It's showing a 5-star rating in the result.
Algorithm Updates | | sparagi0 -
Is there any SEO value to Infographs?
I purchased Piktochart to make what they said were SEO friendly infographs. Hearing conflicting responses on the SEO value I figure I should ask SEO's. The program is easy and you can download as an XML. Any responses are welcome Thank You
Algorithm Updates | | polarking0 -
Affect in SERPs when moving footer links off the homepage
I have several pages that rank highly in the SERPs and these pages are linked directly to my homepage in the footer. I want to clean up my footer because I have too many site wide links but don't want to hurt the SERP rankings during the transition. Will removing these page links from the footer impact SERP rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | braunna0 -
Google automatically adding company name to serp titles
Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I was surprised to see that Google had algorithmically modified my page titles in the search results by adding the company name to the end of the (short) title. <title>About Us</title> became About Us - Company Name Interestingly, this wasn't consistent - sometimes it was "company name Limited" and sometimes just "company name. Anyone else notice this or is this a recent change?
Algorithm Updates | | DougRoberts0 -
Does the browers type affect rankings?
This may be a rooky question so apologies in advance if it is! A client of mine has asked why his site's rank is different when he searches for it from his iPhone or computer (where he uses IE) and also on Bing. Obviously I know that there will be differences between Bing and Google so I can explain that to him. But he seems to be implying that the different browsers are affecting the results on his iPhone and computer. I've tried this myself using Firefox and IE and on Firefox the site ranks page 1 but on IE it ranks page 3 (both using Google). Is this likely to do with the browser having information about my past search habits or is it actually the browser affecting the SERP? Again, sorry if this is a stupid question! Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | WillCreate0