Non-home page ranking higher, very odd
-
One of my new clients has an eCommerce site selling chair mats, that ranks first page for their primary keyword ("chair mats"), but the serp is not showing their home page... It is an odd "resources" page that mostly just has outbound links. I've never seen this.
Also, there are no external inbound links to this particular page. How can this be ranking higher than the home page... weeeeird.
Update: I haven't done any optimization yet... and yes, I know the site is outdated
- My location is set to San Diego. If I change it (New York City), the Resources2.htm page goes away from the page 1 ranking, and I get a page 2 home page ranking. This is so strange
-
I feel your pain! Although, sometimes cleaning up an outdated site can be the most rewarding because there is so much upward potential. Good luck!
-
I notice that when I navigate to an interior page, then want to go back to the Home page, that the little hyper-link in the upper left inside the home page logo actually took me to this URL:
http://www.thematstore.com/index.htm
instead of http://www.thematstore.com
I loaded them both into OSE: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/comparisons?site=www.thematstore.com&comparisons%5B0%5D=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thematstore.com%2Findex.htm&=Compare
You can see that the /index.html version of your homepage has the lion's share of internal followed links. This might be something you want to correct so all those internal pages are actually linking back to http://www.thematstore.com
I agree with Irving's suggestion to get rid of those footer links to other search engines.
I disagree with Irving's statement that keyword tags "can only hurt" you. I don't think they are hurting you. But he is correct in that you don't really need them. It does help your competitors discover what keywords you're going after.
Since you are so close to page one, I would do just those things and see if your ranking improves. If it does. Proceed cautiously with Irving's suggestions "c" and "d." I'm not saying they aren't good suggestions, but that if you do everything all at once, and your ranking sinks, you won't have any idea what had the negative impact. I would be especially cautious in removing that page and "de-optimizing" things.
Out of recent personal experience, I decided to "de-optimize" a page that had SEO copy in small text way at the bottom of an e-commerce page. I was #2 in Google and hoped that by de-optimizing I could move up to #1. Guess what? I took out my keyword-stuffed copy, and boom, dropped to #4.
This is why I say proceed with caution. Do one thing at a time and evaluate the results before moving on and changing something else.
Hope this helps!
-
Thanks, good suggestions. I just walked into this one and there are a lot of outdated tactics and work to be done.
The ranking is just odd. Right now I'm seeing /resources2.html at number 6, and the home page at 27 in Google. But in other search engines, the home page is ranked on first page, and the resources2 is no where to be found (as it should be).
-
It's actually the "resources2" page that is ranking: http://www.thematstore.com/resources2.html, which has no inbound links and I think the only external link is from resources.html (more resources link).
-
Every page of the website links to it. quickstart.clari.net links to that particular page. And the rest of the site just isn't optimized (as you already stated) so I think that Google takes all of these things and for some reason decided that the resources page is the most relevant for the term.
Taking shots in the dark here... this is really odd At least you know you will be able to correct it with no trouble at all, lol
-
Looks fine to me I see #11 in Google with the homepage. Some suggestions though:
a) lose the footer search engine links, looks outdated and you're leaking PR for no reason and increasing bounce rate.
b) lose the keyword tags, they are stuffed and it's a tag that can hurt only and not help.
c) deoptimize the navigation links for "chair mats" it's overdone
d) completely delete the resources page, especially if this was part of a reciprocal link building strategy. I see a pool supplies link on there so i assume it was.
-
Better on page optimization maybe and better page juice distribution across the site? Are you linking back properly to the homepage globally?
EDIT: ok i see you posted the URL now, i'll take a look that helps
-
Yes, it is www.thematstore.com.
I have personalization disabled in Google search. The weird thing is, the resources page is showing up in Google (for me), but the home page shows up in Yahoo or Bing,
-
Hi Joe,
I am curious to know about how this could happen too.
Is your client in the USA? I just searched "chair mats" and outside of the major brands like Staples, Amazon and Sam's Club, there were only a couple of others listed, and the listing was for their home page. I didn't see any listings on page 1 that went to a subdirectory or resource page. This might be a silly question, but are you private browsing?
Dana
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
-
URL structure - Page Path vs No Page Path
We are currently re building our URL structure for eccomerce websites. We have seen a lot of site removing the page path on product pages e.g. https://www.theiconic.co.nz/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html versus what would normally be https://www.theiconic.co.nz/womens-clothing-tops/liberty-beach-blossom-shirt-680193.html Should we be removing the site page path for a product page to keep the url shorter or should we keep it? I can see that we would loose the hierarchy juice to a product page but not sure what is the right thing to do.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ashcastle0 -
Prioritise a page in Google/why is a well-optimised page not ranking
Hello I'm new to Moz Forums and was wondering if anyone out there could help with a query. My client has an ecommerce site selling a range of pet products, most of which have multiple items in the range for difference size animals i.e. [Product name] for small dog
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LauraSorrelle
[Product name] for medium dog
[Product name] for large dog
[Product name] for extra large dog I've got some really great rankings (top 3) for many keyword searches such as
'[product name] for dogs'
'[product name]' But these rankings are for individual product pages, meaning the user is taken to a small dog product page when they might have a large dog or visa versa. I felt it would be better for the users (and for conversions and bounce rates), if there was a group page which showed all products in the range which I could target keywords '[product name]', '[product name] for dogs'. The page would link through the the individual product pages. I created some group pages in autumn last year to trial this and, although they are well-optimised (score of 98 on Moz's optimisation tool), they are not ranking well. They are indexed, but way down the SERPs. The same group page format has been used for the PPC campaign and the difference to the retention/conversion of visitors is significant. Why are my group pages not ranking? Is it because my client's site already has good rankings for the target term and Google does not want to show another page of the site and muddy results?
Is there a way to prioritise the group page in Google's eyes? Or bring it to Google's attention? Any suggestions/advice welcome. Thanks in advance Laura0 -
Our client's web property recently switched over to secure pages (https) however there non secure pages (http) are still being indexed in Google. Should we request in GWMT to have the non secure pages deindexed?
Our client recently switched over to https via new SSL. They have also implemented rel canonicals for most of their internal webpages (that point to the https). However many of their non secure webpages are still being indexed by Google. We have access to their GWMT for both the secure and non secure pages.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB
Should we just let Google figure out what to do with the non secure pages? We would like to setup 301 redirects from the old non secure pages to the new secure pages, but were not sure if this is going to happen. We thought about requesting in GWMT for Google to remove the non secure pages. However we felt this was pretty drastic. Any recommendations would be much appreciated.0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page and I don't know why?
I have an E-Commerce store and to make things easy, let's say I am selling shoes. There is: Category named 'Shoes' and 3 products 'Sport shoes', 'Hiking shoes' and 'Dancing shoes' My problem: For the keyword 'Shoes' Google is showing the product result 'Sport shoes'. This makes no sense from user perspective. (It's like searching for 'iPhone' and getting a result for 'iPhone 4s' instead of a general overview.) Now what are the specifics of my category page (Which I want Google to rank): It has more external links with higher quality It has more internal links It has much higher page authority It has useful text to guide the user for the keyword It is a category instead of a product All this given, I just don't know how I can signal Google that this page makes sense to show in SERPs? Hope you can help with this!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | soralsokal0 -
Optimized pages ranking lower than homepage with keywords
Ok, I know this question has been out there before, but i don't know how fo search for it specifically enough. I have several keywords that rank higher on my home page. As you know MOZ assigns keywords to whichever page on your site popping up in search first. So even though i have A-grade optimized pages for a particular keyword, that page may not pop up BEFORE the homepage for instance, on searches. In many cases, the homepage is grade "F" for a particular keyword, yet its pulling up first for most of my keywords. I know that my homepage has more rank because it gets the most visits and i'm sure we can't really optimize the homepage for EVERY keyword. What is the best thing to do in this situation? Do i just need to wait for my optimized page to catch up in rank, or is there a trick to optimizing homepage to ALL key words at grade "A" level? Do i need to keep back-linking to my optimized page directly to get the juice up? I created all these great optimized pages for specific keywords, but my homepage which shows "F" grade is the one pulling up 4th or 5th on searches Help??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DrMcCoy0 -
Homepage not ranking in Google AU, but ranking in Google UK?
Hey everyone, My homepage has not been ranking for it's primary keyword in Google Australia for many months now. Yesterday when I was using a UK Proxy and searching via Google UK I found my homepage/primary keyword ranked on page 8 in the UK. Now in Australia my website ranks on page 6 but it's for other pages on my website (and it always changes from different page to page). Previously my page was popping up at the bottom of page 1 and page 2. I've been trying many things and waiting weeks to see if it had any impact for over 4 months but I'm pretty lost for ideas now. Especially after what I saw yesterday in Google UK. I'd be very grateful if someone has had the same experience of suggestions and what I should try doing. I did a small audit on my page and because the site is focused on one product and features the primary keyword I took steps to try and fix the issue. I did the following: I noticed the developer had added H1 tags to many places on the homepage so I removed them all to make sure I wasn't getting an over optimization penalty. Cleaned up some of my links because I was not sure if this was the issue (I've never had a warning within Google webmaster tools) Changed the title tags/h tags on secondary pages not to feature the primary keyword as much Made some pages 'noindex' to try and see if this would take away the emphases on the secondary pages Resubmitted by XML sitemaps to Google Just recently claimed a local listings place in Google (still need to verify) and fixed up citations of my address/phone numbers etc (However it's not a local business - sells Australia wide) Added some new backlinks from AU sites (only a handful though) The only other option I can think of is to replace the name of the product on secondary pages to a different appreciation to make sure that the keyword isn't featured there. Some other notes on the site: When site do a 'site:url' search my homepage comes up at the top The site sometimes ranked for a secondary keyword on the front page in specific locations in Australia (but goes to a localised City page). I've noindexed these as a test to see if something with localisation is messing it around. I do have links from AU but I do have links from .com and wherever else. Any tips, advice, would be fantastic. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdaptDigital0 -
Site less than 20 pages shows 1,400+ pages when crawled
Hello! I’m new to SEO, and have been soaking up as much as I can. I really love it, and feel like it could be a great fit for me – I love the challenge of figuring out the SEO puzzle, plus I have a copywriting/PR background, so I feel like that would be perfect for helping businesses get a great jump on their online competition. In fact, I was so excited about my newfound love of SEO that I offered to help a friend who owns a small business on his site. Once I started, though, I found myself hopelessly confused. The problem comes when I crawl the site. It was designed in Wordpress, and is really not very big (part of my goal in working with him was to help him get some great content added!) Even though there are only 11 pages – and 6 posts – for the entire site, when I use Screaming Frog to crawl it, it sees HUNDREDS of pages. It stops at 500, because that is the limit for their free version. In the campaign I started here at SEOmoz, and it says over 1,400 pages have been crawled…with something like 900 errors. Not good, right? So I've been trying to figure out the problem...when I look closer in Screaming Frog, I can see that some things are being repeated over and over. If I sort by the Title, the URLs look like they’re stuck in a loop somehow - one line will have /blog/category/postname…the next line will have /blog/category/category/postname…and the next line will have /blog/category/category/category/postname…and so on, with another /category/ added each time. So, with that, I have two questions Does anyone know what the problem is, and how to fix it? Do professional SEO people troubleshoot this kind of stuff all of the time? Is this the best place to get answers to questions like that? And if not, where is? Thanks so much in advance for your help! I’ve enjoyed reading all of the posts that are available here so far, it seems like a really excellent and helpful community...I'm looking forward to the day when I can actually answer the questions!! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | K.Walters0 -
Hi my site dropped from page rank 4 to 0,
I have done everything the correct way and my site shouldnt break any guidelines can someone tell me where i can contact google and oppose this please? also can someone tell me if links play a part in this> of if this is something to do with the penguin update and my site has been wrongly effected? my url is below http://www.diamondwaste.co.uk/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tommyboy70