How does my competitor website jump from a natural ranking of 10 to 1 in a matter of days?
-
OK this has really got me baffled, and I really hope the MOZ community can give me the answers I am seeking....
My statements and queries below are my own opinions and thoughts. I am not an experienced SEOer and I am learning all the time, so if I have written something incorrectly, please feel free to correct me
I have been told that natural rankings take time, and I have read with the recent algorithm changes from Google, that purchased links do not have an effect like they used to. I have also read somewhere that google has clamped down on bogus article writing (MOZ please clarify)
But what I am seeking some clarification on is, how does my competitors website, that has had a natural rank of #1 in the past, suddenly drop off; for a lengthy period of time, then suddenly re-appear at #10 on page #1, then some three/four days later, hit #1?
I have read that natural rankings are purely natural. I.e. a domain owner cannot pay google to boost their natural ranking. But is this really true?
Why is it when I speak to a close colleague of mine in the same industry, he mentions that his maps listing has dropped off, and after making a couple of phone calls to his SEO guys in India, maybe a day or two later, magically his maps re-appear?
I really am starting to question is a "natural ranking" really "natural?"
I have heard that some of these SEO agencies do have some tools that dramatically effect the natural ranking of a domain.
What are these tools?
-
Agree with Sam...if you can give me your competitor's web site and the keywords he is ranking with I might be able to provide you with some further information.
In the meantime you might find this post useful as they list 5 unusual reasons you might be getting beaten in SERP http://www.atladasmedia.co.uk/blog/5-seo-reasons-you-may-be-getting-beat-in-rankings-by-websites-that-are-no-better-than-yours/
Is your competitor using any of the techniques mentioned?
-
Are you able to provide the search criteria as well as the competitor and your site to which you are referring?
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
-
Selling on eBay and Amazon, does it have a negative impact our your website?
_We sell on multiple platforms I.e own website, eBay, Amazon and have noticed over the last few years to hold a page 1 ranking on Google is becoming more and more difficult as the SERPs are saturated with the big brands. _ My question is, we've loaded all of our products and there lovely unique descriptions to eBay and Amazon, is there any chance that this content is helping eBay and Amazon rank (may be not by much!), but certainly not doing us any favours. As effectively why would you show our site in the search results for a product range, when all of the content/products already appear on eBay/Amazon which is several SERPs places higher? Is Google not inclined to think, "hey no need to show x site, as the content is already features on Amazon, why show it twice?" Any one have any thoughts?
Competitive Research | | bnknowles10 -
Why would a newly created site, have ranked ahead of our site for keyword that we are optimized for?
This newly created site has a DA of 1 and PA of 1, no backlinks, no optimized urls, the keyword they ranked better than us on was listed a total of 6 times on the homepage. Our PA is 29 and DA is 18 for the page that ranks for this keyword. They really copied a few elements of our site but made sure to change a few things, but also list at the bottom of their site 5 keywords that are crucial to our niche industry but they're all linking to the same page. Any ideas? It's an SEO guy running the site, we've watched them toy with adwords trying to be number 1, but not liking the price, so they are here and there with it. Mainly I don't see why they'd rank better for this keyword, we our site have prolly 500% more content that's both of quality and relevance to our customers, in the form of Pdfs, infographics, help sections, and video. Very baffled here, any advice would rock!
Competitive Research | | Deacyde1 -
Site Ranking for keywords that they haven't targeted in content
There is a site that I am constantly battling for the #1 spot for a particular keyword and I can't see that they are doing any link building, they are not using any anchor text for the keyword "at all" just their company name (not exact match) and their content doesn't even contain the keyword. I used Open site explorer to analyze their activity, but they are doing something I can't figure out from that data. Any other tools to use? I have higher quality links than them, post content nearly 5 times per week to my blog and their blog hasn't been updated in ages, I kill them in social media, there isn't one instance that they are better than my site and I only build quality driven links, no blog comment crap and get featured on lots of industry blogs for our work. I distribute my content very effectively, I just can't figure it out. They were no where about 5 months ago now they are tearing it up for lots of keywords in the industry top spots. I can build a few links and surpass them, but I have to do it every week or so and I think they are doing something fishy. I just want to figure out what they are doing and bury them. I don't want to post their url and mine here as I don't want them to see this post in search results.
Competitive Research | | photoseo10 -
Currently Number 2 - Worth Shooting for 1?
Hello SEO Community, So I was able to rise to #2 in a highly competitive search term after a guest blog post that I wrote really took off (wish I could recreate that for my other terms, haha) Anyway, I steadily rose from 30ish to number 2 and have obviously seen more traffic, which is awesome and I'm happy. But still, in terms of the amount of traffic that google estimates the keyword gets, and the amount I'm getting at #2, it seems like #1 is getting the VAST majority (I know this is how most markets work). Judging from my link profile compared to #1, it would be extremely difficult to dethrone them. So what do y'all think? Is it worth spending time and resources shooting for the glory and traffic of #1 and potentially never getting there - or focusing my efforts on my middling keywords and getting those on the first page as well?
Competitive Research | | CleanEdisonInc0 -
Much better authority and content than some competitors, why do they appear first?
On august we have lost the top positions for some keywords. Our website authority is 62 (google page rank 5), and some quite small competitors appear first now (some of them have authority 22, google page rank 3!). Our only big change was the DNS server, from godaddy to dnsimple.com, which seems to be some milisseconds slower. Every other metric is in our favor: from on-page repports to site speed. Sometimes by a factor of 3 or 4. What can be happening? We have also realized that, in private browsing, rankings will change a little bit in different cities, even if they are quite close to each other.
Competitive Research | | PauloSilveira0 -
Analysis tool that returns all possible phrases that a web site ranks for
Is there anything out there similar to the semrush.com's competitor research that can tell you a web sites total amount of appearances on Google that includes the phrases for which the domain ranks?
Competitive Research | | thebaldman30 -
Determining why an established competitor's rankings have bombed - What's the best way to go about it?
I arrived at work this morning to find my weekly SEOmoz ranking report for a main competitor waiting in my inbox. 90% of the their rankings have tanked in the last day or so by an average of 3 pages - most down from page 1 or 2 where they had been sitting pretty for ages. I'm not in a state of (total) euphoria about this because a) you should be humble enough not to gloat at your enemy's demise, and b) I need to find out what they did wrong so that I don't make the same mistake, too. **What is your first suggested port of call to determine where my (vanquished) foe has gone wrong? How much can I find out? ** I do know one thing - with OSE I can see they've used dodgy blogging services but this, to my mind, would have been jumped upon by Google last year. No? Thanks guys
Competitive Research | | Martin_S0 -
I would like suggestions for winery websites
Has anyone on here worked for, or simply know of a high authority winery website? I may have the opportunity to do some work for a vineyard/winery. Obviously there are certain universal seo tactics that I will use on the site, however my knowledge of wine is limited, so I would like some suggestions for, well deigned and seo optimized sites to study and learn from. Any suggestions?
Competitive Research | | NerdsOnCall0