Homepage not showing for searches
-
Hi
Looking for a bit advice our client - www.financial-wise.co.uk
We worked with this client on his old website www.mortgage-wise.co.uk we had him ranking for most local searches. The client then re-branded the full company and got another company in to do this, they did him new website www.financial-wise.co.uk, the company then launched the new domain with the old one still showing, some of the content was the same, including homepage.
Anyway the issue im having now is, for certain searches im struggling to get them ranking again and for searches such as financial wise, its inner pages showing instead of the homepage?
I have che checked and homepage is indexed, i have also re-written all the text on the homepage but still having some issue, its almost like the homepage has been penalised
any help would be great?
-
Please let us know if it bounced back after the next Panda! I'm guessing it will.
-
Hi Marie
Thanks for your feedback - it was something that I did think may be related to Panda and was one of the reasons I opened this question.
The homepage was straight copy of the old homepage - the other website design company launched both sites - both where indexed - when I took it back over, I did a 301 right away - I also did address change in webmaster tools and verified the new website that all went through and believe shortly after the old website was then removed from the index.
I hope with next refresh it comes back a bit, strange alot of keywords im working on for homepage are showing in google places but not on the organic serps, but some are.
-
"the company then launched the new domain with the old one still showing, some of the content was the same, including homepage."
There's a good chance that you've got a Panda issue. Here's what I see probably happened:
You launched the new site and it probably started to rank.
The next time Panda refreshed Google said, "Hey! This new site has several pages that are exactly the same as a site that already exists in our index. There's no point in showing this new site to people who search."
Even if the old site is now offline, it can still be in the Google index for a LONG time. If you do nothing, eventually the old pages will drop out and eventually your new site can start showing, but that could take ages.
Did you follow these steps to move to a new domain? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=83105
Now, if you don't want to 301 (for example, if the old site was affected by a linking penalty like Penguin) then do the following:
1. Noindex, nofollow all of the pages of the old site. (It's not enough to just do steps 2&3 in case other search engines have the old site indexed.)
2. Block the old site from search engine crawls via robots.txt
3. Use the Google url removal tool in WMT to tell it to remove the old site from their index.
Then, you'll need to wait until Panda refreshes. The new site should pop up with the rankings of the old. Panda tends to refresh about every 3-6 weeks.
With all of that being said, I see that the old site is no longer in the index. If you've already taken care of totally removing the old site from the index then you simply have to wait until Panda refreshes.
EDIT: I just saw that you did do 301s. This may be more complicated than I first thought. If the 301s weren't in place BEFORE you put the new site online then again, you likely need to wait for Panda. Once the Panda filter gets slapped on your site it doesn't get removed until Panda refreshes.
-
You definitely have a point. Deeper page content is much better than home page content.
-
To Google, though, it's not a random page. It's the page they have selected as the best representation. That's the other way you need to look at it. Are there more links, better content to your deeper page compared to your home page for the selected keywords, could that be part of the reason?
As a user, I rarely like getting the homepage; it's usually pretty generic compared to deeper page content so it gives me a better user experience.
-
Domain Age is also a factor that Google uses. So it's probably because it is a new domain and it needs to "age" a bit. Your old domain was probably older and had a bit more authority than your new domain.
-
I just felt their is something not quite right with regards to homepage - wasnt sure if it was because it was duplicate content before I put the 301 in place
just seems homepage not ranking as good as I think it should - when we did his old website he was ranking top 5 in organic serps (not google places) for most of the keywords
-
It doesn't matter where you are building links. Links aren't the only factor that Google uses to determine relevancy. If one of your inner pages has more keyword prominence for "Financial Wise", then Google will see that this page will provide it's users' with better, more relevant information about Financial Wise, than the home page.
Let's put ourselves in the searchers shoes again... I'm looking for a Mortgage Advisor in the West Lothian area. My first choice will be in Google places because I am looking for a physical business in the area. So Google shows me the areas first.
Now lets say I am looking for actual Mortgage Advice online. If you had optimized your home page to give me advice and your website is the "advisor", then your home page would probably be showing in the pure SERP and not Google Places.
I really hope this makes sense.
P.S If you add "in" to your phrase (Mortgage Advisors in West Lothian) you will see that your home page is ranked because you used the exact keyword.
-
an example without the in - its only showing in google places, other keywords aswell just showing in google places
if you search financial wise aswell few pages showing but not homepage
the homepage is the only place we have been building links to so far
-
The keyword "Mortgage Advisors in West Lothian" is ranking your home page though. I don't see the problem.
Which keywords are the ones that are going to your "inner" pages?
-
the links - articles we have been developing have anchors related to business like
mortgage advisors west lothian etc, some of the searches showing up in google places but not in organic searches
-
Unless you have a very popular brand, you shouldn't be focusing on your brand name (financial wise). You should focus on the services and products you provide like "Mortgage Advisors".
When you put yourself in a searchers shoes, you wouldn't search for Financial Wise. You would probably be looking for "Financial Advice" (blog article?) or "Mortgage Advisors".
The old way of doing SEO is over. You need to cater for your visitors. Ask yourself, "Is this page the kind of content I would be looking for if I searched fro this keyword?". If not then create it into one.
-
a full site 301 has been done, it was the first thing i went ahead and done
but keywords im pusing which are for homepage, are not showing or showing a random page
-
If you haven't done so already, you need to create a 301 redirect from the old domain to the new one.
Google wants to find the most relevant pages to show it's users so those "inner" pages you are seeing are probably the most relevant for the keyword/phrase. It's not a bad thing at all, so don't stress over it.
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
-
Search pages showing up as soft 404 in WMT
Hi ....we are getting allot of "site search" pages showing up in wmt as soft 404's and wanted to know what the best would be to stop this. All search pages are already noindex follow but maybe we should block them in robots txt as well. Would the below help to solve this ? User-agent: *
Technical SEO | | nomad-202323
Disallow: /?s=
Disallow: /search/ Any other suggestions or direction would be appreciated to prevent these pages showing up as soft 404's tks0 -
GWT shows 38 external links from 8 domains to this PDF - But it shows no links and no authority in OSE
Hi All, I found one other discussion about the subject of PDFs and passing of PageRank here: http://moz.com/community/q/will-a-pdf-pass-pagerank But this thread didn't answer my question so am posting it here. This PDF: http://www.ccisolutions.com/jsp/pdf/YAM-EMX_SERIES.PDF is reported by GWT to have 38 links coming from 8 unique domains. I checked the domains and some of them are high-quality relevant sites. Here's the list: Domains and Number of Links
Technical SEO | | danatanseo
prodiscjockeyequipment.com 9
decaturilmetalbuildings.com 9
timberlinesteelbuildings.com 6
jaymixer.com 4
panelsteelbuilding.com 4
steelbuildingsguide.net 3
freedocumentsearch.com 2
freedocument.net 1 However, when I plug the URL for this PDF into OSE, it reports no links and a Page Authority if only "1". This is not a new page. This is a really old page. In addition to that, when I check the PageRank of this URL, the PageRank is "nil" - not even "0" - I'm currently working on adding links back to our main site from within our PDFs, but I'm not sure how worthwhile this is if the PDFs aren't being allocated any authority from the pages already linking to them. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Thanks all!0 -
Google showing wrong title
Hi, Can anyone assist a newbie please? My keyword 'Security Systems' is giving me position 1 on page 1, but the title it is using is not the page title. I am assuming for some reason it has made it up, please see below. The actual title tag says - <colgroup><col width="420"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | DaddySmurf
| Security systems | wireless | battery powered | Police Approved | CSS | Google is showing - Compound Security Systems: Wireless Security Systems | Battery ... <cite>www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/</cite>Manufacturers & suppliers of The Mosquito Device & Professional industry compliant and Police recommended battery powered wireless security systems.Contact us - Mosquito Anti-Loitering Devices - Security Equipment - Installers<iframe class="SEOmoz-iframe" src="chrome-extension://eakacpaijcpapndcfffdgphdiccmpknp/html/serpbar.html#{" settings":{"dmr":false,"dmt":false,"mr":true,"mt":true,"serp-overlay":true,"toolbar-enabled":true,"subdomain-metrics":false,"serp-panel-open":true,"toolbar-position":"bottom"},"lsdata":{"feid":1245,"fipl":315,"fmrp":4.717881718426137,"fmrr":3.169235978744307e-9,"ftrp":5.245402699173709,"ftrr":8.283399271183101e-8,"fuid":15756,"pda":47.20670031521297,"peid":1266,"pid":315,"pmrp":4.634793943915049,"pmrr":1.137485303730264e-7,"ptrp":4.949510322693934,"ptrr":1.6938187788875737e-7,"puid":15777,"ueid":510,"uemrp":4.693787066897207,"uemrr":2.520503065617982e-10,"uid":1060,"uipl":191,"ujid":1038,"umrp":4.96103855611017,"umrr":5.477715129904515e-10,"upa":55.929113684261466,"utrp":6.066855084050327,"utrr":2.1655670926371268e-10},"user":{"level":"pro","options":{},"proenabled":true,"aclurl":"http:="" moz.com="" users="" level?src="mozbar","loginURL":"https://moz.com/login","logoutURL":"https://moz.com/logout","apiRequest":"url-metrics","cols":"133146078688","expired":false,"accessId":"pro-RGFkZHlTbXVyZg%3D%3D","expires":1374249469,"signature":"M%2Bh%2FXh4OS%2BAMtT2j6kuntWSTvNI%3D","displayName":"DaddySmurf"},"serp":1,"host":"www.compoundsecurity.co.uk"}"" scrolling="no"></iframe> If anyone can tell me how to correct this, i would very much appreciate it. Regards, Si0 -
Optimizing the homepage : should I have a h1 or not?
Hi everyone, I am launching a debate that may seem a bit basic for the most experienced of you 😉 In fact, after completing internships in two different agencies, I had quite opposite views of the optimization process for the homepage: View 1: The home page should be optimized on a keyword and should definitely have a h1. View 2: The home page is a branded page and should not necessarily have an h1 (unlike other pages). Bonus question: assuming that the view 1 is the right one, is it a good idea to put a h1 on the logo (only for the homepage) ? Thank you very much for your help
Technical SEO | | Axel_Janvier0 -
Posting Logos on Your Homepage to Increase Trustworthiness
If you have been linked to from authoritative sites would it be appropriate to name them on a "As Seen On" section on your homepage with their logo. Do you need permission to use their logo on your site? A followup question: would doing this help with the Panda algorithm.
Technical SEO | | ProjectLabs0 -
Why is a site search query being returned in SE results
Hello One of my top targeted keywords is now linking to the results page of an internal site search query (the search query is for my site url). Oddly, this page does not contain the targeted keywords. My site url used to be the highest ranking page for my targeted keywords. Can anybody advise why this is happening and how I can change it? Thanks Nick
Technical SEO | | PP_user0 -
Image search and CDNs
Hi, Our site has a very high domain strength. Although our site ranks well for general search phrases, we rank poorly for image search (even though our site has very high quality images). Our images are hosted on a separate CDN with a different domain. Although there are a number of benefits to doing this, since they are on a different domain, are we not able to capitalize on our my site's domain strength? Is there any way to associate our CDN to our main site via Google webmaster tools? Has anyone researched the search ranking impacts due to storing your images on a CDN, given that your domain strength is very high? Curious on people's thoughts?
Technical SEO | | NicB10 -
Why does this page show it has 166 links in the crawll?
http://ensoplastics.com/theblog/?p=213 This is a page that shows up as having over a 100 links in the crawl, however I don't understand where those links are coming from?
Technical SEO | | ENSO0