Why does my home page show up in search results instead of my target page for a specific keyword?
-
I am using Wordpress and am targeting a specific keyword..and am using Yoast SEO if that question comes up.. and I am at 100% as far as what they recommend for on page optimization. The target html page is a "POST" and not a "Page" using Wordpress definitions.
Also, I am using this Pinterest style theme here http://pinclone.net/demo/ - which makes the post a sort of "pop-up" - but I started with a different theme and the results below were always the case..so I don't know if that is a factor or not. (I promise .. this is not a clever spammy attempt to promote their theme - in fact parts of it don't even work for me yet so I would not recommend it just yet...)
I DO show up on the first page for my keyword.. however.. instead of Google showing the page
www.mywebsite.com/this-is-my-targeted-keyword-page.htm
Google shows
in the results instead.
The problem being - if the traffic goes only to my home page.. they will be less likely to stay if they dont find what they want immediately and have to search for it..
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
-
Hi and thanks TommyTan
Actually I only recently put the site up and as such..it has zero backlinks..
I think your second guess might be more likely.. but still....it was started with a different theme where this post was NOT on the home page..
-
Hi David,
Your home page might be receiving more backlinks than the keyword targeted page and Google might think that your home page is a better result to the searchers.
Another thought I have from what you described about the theme you used, the posts pops up on the home page. So does that mean it is part of the home page and it doesn't have its own page. If that is true, then it might also be a reason why Google is showing your home page and not your targeted page.
First hypothesis might be a better guess.
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
-
Suddenly keywords Disappeared from Google Search Results
Hello Guys Please help me, suddenly all of my site's keywords are disappeared from google search result, most of keywords are no.1 on google but today after 6pm i see the traffic decreasing and when i search my keywords there is no any keywords in search result. Only homepage keyword is showing. Please Help what is Happening with me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mianazeem4180 -
Search Console - Best practice to fetch pages when you update them?
Hi guys, If you make changes to a page e.g. add more content or something is it good practice to get google to fetch that page again in search console? My assumption is this way, Google can review the updated page quicker, resulting in faster changes in the SERPs for that page. Thoughts? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wozniak650 -
Why does Google display the home page rather than a page which is better optimised to answer the query?
I have a page which (I believe) is well optimised for a specific keyword (URL, title tag, meta description, H1, etc). yet Google chooses to display the home page instead of the page more suited to the search query. Why is Google doing this and what can I do to stop it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
Search engine keyword rank - easiest way to check the keywords that rank across website
What is the best keyword ranking tool you have used? I have used various tools by which I am expected to identify and input the keyword I want to track... However, recently I was introduced to Searchmetrics, which I think automatically pulls in the keywords a website ranks for, without the need for manual input from the SEO (I haven't used this tool yet, so apologies if I am incorrect!). Do any other rank trackers work like this? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart1 -
Google search results
I have been doing some searches on google to see where my new site shows up, I started using the search words "graphic design firm st. louis" as a gauge, because my title is St. Louis Missouri Graphic Design Firm. I showed up on about page 5 to start , if I include the word "firm" and a few pages further back if I just search "graphic design st. louis", without the word firm. It seemed i was slowly moving up pages with both searches and then a few days ago I jumped to page 1 for search "graphic design firm st. louis" the thing is it doesnt show up at all now if i search "graphic design st. louis" without the word firm. what would cause the one search to jump so high while the other one dissapeared completely?? and what can i do? my keyword density is same for both , any ideas.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eric69660 -
Benefit of Targeting Low/No Volume Keyword Phrases
Hi Folks, I was having a discussion with a friend and colleague of mine yesterday about the pros and cons of targeting keyword phrases that have very little if any search volume. I was of the opinion that if the keyword phrases (whether they were local or not) did not have any search volume as indicated by Google's Keyword Planner tool, then they had little if any value. Would this be a correct assumption? Or is there merit to targeting these phrases in order to begin to build a picture of a sites overall subject matter and to help rank in local search? For example, say there is a phrase like 'second hand clothing slough' (just a random phrase) which has no search volume but 'second hand clothing' has 2400 visits a month, would it be worth targeting the search phrase with no volume to build a better local profile, so that if someone in Slough searches for 'second hand clothing' the site shows up for that keyword? Thanks in advance guys! Gareth
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PurpleGriffon0 -
To index or de-index internal search results pages?
Hi there. My client uses a CMS/E-Commerce platform that is automatically set up to index every single internal search results page on search engines. This was supposedly built as an "SEO Friendly" feature in the sense that it creates hundreds of new indexed pages to send to search engines that reflect various terminology used by existing visitors of the site. In many cases, these pages have proven to outperform our optimized static pages, but there are multiple issues with them: The CMS does not allow us to add any static content to these pages, including titles, headers, metas, or copy on the page The query typed in by the site visitor always becomes part of the Title tag / Meta description on Google. If the customer's internal search query contains any less than ideal terminology that we wouldn't want other users to see, their phrasing is out there for the whole world to see, causing lots and lots of ugly terminology floating around on Google that we can't affect. I am scared to do a blanket de-indexation of all /search/ results pages because we would lose the majority of our rankings and traffic in the short term, while trying to improve the ranks of our optimized static pages. The ideal is to really move up our static pages in Google's index, and when their performance is strong enough, to de-index all of the internal search results pages - but for some reason Google keeps choosing the internal search results page as the "better" page to rank for our targeted keywords. Can anyone advise? Has anyone been in a similar situation? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
Help! Optimizing dynamic internal search results pages...
Hi guys, Now I have always been against this, and opted to noindex internal search results pages to stop the waste of link juice, dupe content, and crawl loops... however, I'm in a discussion with somebody who feels there may be a solution, and that the pages could actually be optimized to rank (for different keywords to the landing pages of course). Anybody come across such a thing before? My only solution would be still to noindex and then build static pages with the most popular search results in but that won't suffice in this case. Any recommendations would be much appreciated 🙂 Thanks, Steve 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveOllington0