Spam affiliate outranking quality site?

[Neyzio]

I purchased a site hotkeyit.com which was making decent revenue without much work (all via PPC or CPM) but then afterwards started looking at the SERPs and realized I was being outranked for the main term, 'starcraft 2 guide/s' by crappy ClickBank sites like starcraft2guide.com and many others. Researching starcraft2guide.com specifically in SEOMoz/Rush/Majestic shows hotkeyit.com as being quite superior in everyway, not to mention it has quite a social following for a small gaming site, yet Google seems to care not.

Can someone please explain what's going on here? It seems like the site was penalized, but there was never any link building done for it aside from word of mouth on forums (this was mentioned beforehand).

Thank you everyone.

[Joe_Nickdow]

Yeah, it seems that it may have something to do with the lack of varied linking root domains. I'd do some link building and see what happens. Keep an eye on webmaster tools although it doesn't seem like you should have any penaltys.  Just keep at it, check out the SEOmoz guide and you'll see those rankings rise.

Also, don't get stuck on a few keywords. Check out your analytics and see if there is any 'low hanging fruit' that's driving traffic and you may be able to boost your rankings for that.

[Neyzio]

This is the biggest disappointment with Google's rankings though. 70% of the sites above me are not even selling anything, they're just spun content with ClickBank hoplinks and they have terrible usability (even a bot can tell from the coding). Yet they still dominate me with far less of a link profile AND nothing to add to anyone.

And I don't believe it's just the EMD. It must be either something with my site that Google doesn't like (no clue) or they're doing something very tricky. I just wish these things were easy to discover. None of the SEOMoz tools seem to help at all, and cleary you guys, even as professionals, can't make it out =(

I'm being a whiny little bitch, but in this instance I can't help it. Once again, you guys rock.

[Joe_Nickdow]

You're welcome.

I also forgot to mention that your site has a very clean layout with a clear call to action. While you may have a hard time being #1 for some of those terms you can never forget the importance of usability and having your customers feel comfortable entering their personal information.  Compared to your competition I would feel much better using your site than theirs.

[Neyzio]

I had no idea that keywords in the URL were that powerful. After you and Collin both mention it, I guess it must be a major factor. Seems pretty silly why Google would take that into account though, seeing as sites using EMD are more spammy than branded URLs (at least in my experience). How unfortunate.

Anyway, thank you, Joseph.

[Joe_Nickdow]

Some of the sites ranking on the first page are exact match or close to exact match domains which you can't ignore.

I also noticed that your site has a good amount of links but a lot are from the same domains while some of your competitors have a much more varied backlink profile. I'd open up open site explorer and compare your site to the competition, pay special attention to the links/linking root domains. I'd try to build a more diverse backlink profile.

You have a lot of likes, I'd add a google plus button as well, it can't hurt.

Good luck!

[Neyzio]

Thanks, Collin. We already do rank #4 and #1 for training and coaching. I really do appreciate the help.

If anyone really knows, please don't pass up... this is such a blatantly awkward situation that I'd really like to get to the bottom of it. AM sites in general seem to use a lot of blackhat techniques since the products they push are short-lived, but I can't seem to track down anything these sites are doing. They're just... ranking super well for no apparent reason.

[CollinJarman]

This is purely anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt - but I've seen for myself and heard reports of Domain URL factoring in very prominently when it comes to SERP rankings.

That being said, I'm quite the gamer myself... when people search for "guides," I believe they are typically searching for things more along the lines of Walkthroughs and FAQs.  What you seem to be offering is more accurately described as a training/coaching service.  You can attempt to rank for "guides" if you like, but you'll almost certainly acquire higher quality traffic by focusing on the more relevant keywords of "coaching" &"training" and the like.

Just my 2 cents.