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.
-
Thanks for the extra ideas Chris. Good points, I will have to work on reworking some things.
-
Steven, I'll go out on a limb and guess that its the site listed in your profile that you're writing about. If that's the case, I have a few suggestions for you.
It appears there may be some keyword cannibalization going on on the site as you have quite a few pages that compete with your home page for what looks like your main keyword. The page content and the meta data for the homepage and the packages seem to compete with each other over the keyword they're optimized for and, since the rest of the pages and your blog all used the three-word domain name at the beginning of the title, they look like they are competing for that exact match keyword. Be sure that to choose a primary keyword focus for your homepage and keep the rest of the page titles and corresponding content focused on distinctly different terms. With all the strength and relevance of particular keywords focused on single pages, those pages will have an easier time maintaining their highest potential ranking positions in the search results.
Also (this isn't the cause of the site's current issue but could be the cause of a future one) there are those links that point to a small group of interlinked sites that might be considered an effort to manipulate rankings unless they were nofollowed.
-
Thanks for some ideas Jeff. Their domain is older than mine, but it was the fact that they came from no where about 5 months ago that really brought them to my attention.
Thanks for the link to Search Engine Journal. Pretty familiar with most of that stuff. I ran a structured data check and found nothing. It could be their age, but I don't buy it. They aren't doing anything that I am not doing 3x better and cleaner. Looking in open site explorer they are ranking for keywords that they have no anchor text, I am just at a loss.
Thanks for your response
-
I don't want to steer you down the path to the Dark Side, but this article on Search Engine Journal, "Using Black Hat Tools for White Hat Purposes" might be a good place to take a look and see if the other guy is doing anything shady:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/using-black-hat-tools-white-hat-purposes/Other things I might check:
- Domain name age of your site and the other site. Perhaps this other site has such an old domain name, it's always been there...
- Is the other domain using structured data (i.e. RDF) on the site?
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
-
2 sites with low DA and PA and unoptimised <title>outranking everyone for competitive search term - How ?</title>
Im doing some keyword research for a new client, Ive found 2 anomalies for competitive search terms where sites with unoptimised <title>tags, poor backlinks and other stats, (compared to the other sites listed in the SERP) are out ranking everyone and claiming the #1 spot</p> <p> The 2 search terms are :</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=interior+designers+london&oq=interior+designers+london&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i65j69i60j69i65l2j69i60.2784j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">Interior designers London</a>- #1 new-id.co.uk - <a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=new-id.co.uk&filter=&source=external&target=page&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=">OSE info</a></p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=interior+designers+london&oq=interior+designers+london&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i65j69i60j69i65l2j69i60.2784j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=interior+designer+london">Interior designer London</a>- #1 nstudio.co.uk - <a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fnstudio.com%2F&filter=&source=external&target=page&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=">OSE info</a></p> </li> </ul> <p> (interestingly they hardly rank at all for any modification of those search terms)</p> <p> The only thing i could think of is that they both had some really good links using that exact anchor text, but ive been checking OSE for the past month both in the backlinks and the just discovered but couldnt see anything like that.</p> <p>I conducted the SERP checking from a laptop with a broadband connection based in London, although im not very local to either of these locations im about an 8th of the cities distance away from one of those location and about half a cities distance away from the other. So i dont think its a local skew thats causing the SERP rankings.</p> <p>For both sites i can see they had old domains which now redirect to the them :</p> <ul> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><span data-mce-mark="1">New-id.co.uk = </span><span data-mce-mark="1"><a href="http://newidinteriors.com/">newidinteriors.com</a> - <a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=http%3A%2F%2Fnewidinteriors.com&no_redirects=1&filter=&source=external&target=page&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=">OSE info</a> - PA1, DA1</span></p> </li> <li dir="ltr"> <p dir="ltr"><span data-mce-mark="1">Nstudio.co.uk = intarya.com - <a href="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=www.intarya.com&filter=&source=external&target=page&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=">OSE info</a> - Da 32, PA43</span></p> </li> </ul> <p> Although the intarya domain was quite strong with good backlinks (but nothing above par comapred to the other sites the nstudio.co.uk site is now outranking, the anchor text was mostly natural with only some keyword anchor text from PA1 pages. </p> <p>The <a href="http://newidinteriors.com/">newidinteriors.com</a> didnt seem to have a backlink profile, both PA1 and DA1.</p> <p> Ive taken screenshots of the SERP pages below, but feel free to dig further</p> <p>Any idea what's going on here ?</p> <a download="HWkjmDf.png" class="imported-anchor-tag" href="http://i.imgur.com/HWkjmDf.png" target="_blank">HWkjmDf.png</a> <a download="A70jXse.png" class="imported-anchor-tag" href="http://i.imgur.com/A70jXse.png" target="_blank">A70jXse.png</a></title>
Competitive Research | | mike8780 -
Competitor Keywords
Is there any way to find out what keywords my competitors are ranking for? I would like ideas for blogs, website content, etc. to drive traffic and am curious as to what topics my competitors are focusing on. I am able to see my competitors' rankings for keywords which I am currently tracking but I would like to see keywords they are ranking for that I am not tracking if possible. Any suggestions? Josh
Competitive Research | | jbeals0 -
Long tail keywords / Close variations of keywords / Duplicate Content
In a classified site, people usually search for the same item with different keywords which are often very close to each other and point to same set of results: e.g. honda civic for sale
Competitive Research | | razasaeed
used honda civic for sale
civic for sale
used civic for sale
used civic All the above keywords should actually lead to same results i.e honda civic for sale. Our competitor is creating a page for each one of these www.sitename.com/q/honda-civic-for-sale/
www.sitename.com/q/used-honda-civic-for-sale/
... and so on Basically they create a page for each high traffic keyword they encounter where as we have very structure search. How to compete with that ? They are ranking on all these long tail keywords because of separate landing pages though most of the pages are duplicate of each other. 98% same content (all are showing honda civics) Should we go that route OR optimize our single page focusing on keyword with highest traffic and hope google will rank us for the related keywords as well ?0 -
SERP rankings consistency
I have a website which is showing different serp rankings. On one computer, he's on the first page, on another, he's second page and another person from outside our office sees him ranked differently. What would account for the inconsistency in rankings?
Competitive Research | | priceseo0 -
Why is my competitor's site ranking #1?
I'm about to work for a local business website that offers cleaning services and products. The keyword they want the most is ruled by a very odd site; My client's competitor's site has been around for 7 years. (Less than the average of it's competitors. Less than my client's) Has 1 backlink. Lower PA MR MT & DA than any other in the SERP. It's a 1 page site made with Flash. They do not have FB or Twitter accounts. So I thought maybe they were ranking so well because of their traffic. But neither my client, me or my coworkers have ever heard of this company. And yet, they are ranking #1. And the only thing I notice that might have helped is that the title of their page is the exact keyword and nothing more. Any ideas?
Competitive Research | | Eblan0 -
Ranking and Domain/Page Authority
I'm not seeing a very good correlation between ranking and domain/page authority. Am I missing something here? ie., 2nd raning at 1/0. Also seeing competitor as "12" domain authority in "competitive domain analysis", but shows much higher here for same competitor? <colgroup><col width="94"> <col width="171"> <col width="108"></colgroup>
Competitive Research | | delphia
| Page Authority | Page Linking Root Domains | Domain Authority |
| 70 | 40 | 83 |
| 1 | 0 | 41 |
| 51 | 3 | 97 |
| 34 | 5 | 36 |
| 41 | 3 | 52 |
| 23 | 1 | 59 |
| 59 | 49 | 100 |
| 48 | 2 | 100 |
| 52 | 6 | 77 |
| 27 | 2 | 14 |
| 1 | 0 | 57 |
| 15 | 1 | 36 |
| 28 | 2 | 36 |
| 28 | 2 | 36 |
| 24 | 1 | 57 |
| 28 | 2 | 36 |
| 21 | 1 | 36 |1 -
Improving SERP rankings via strategic SEO tactics
Hi, We just build some of our new content pages on our website 1.https://www.practo.com/ray/dental-software 2.https://www.practo.com/ray/dermatology-software 3.https://www.practo.com/ray/homeopathy-software Could someone explain how do I build around a good SEO strategy to compete with others for better positions on the SERP's. I have not done anything apart from fixing proper title tags , and meta descriptions etc and of course putting down relevant fresh content onto these pages. These pages were published about 3 weeks ago - Only this url ranks on the 2nd page as of now for keywords like "dermatology software" https://www.practo.com/ray/dermatology-software The rest of the URL's do not rank anywhere till the 10th SERP too! What could be wrong and where could I have the opportunity to boost the SEO tactics since all the pages which rank above it are just not providing the right kind of product as we are and still they take up the top positions and genuine users miss out on our domain. Thanks . Looking forward to some awesome responses.
Competitive Research | | shanky10 -
Site redirect
Hi, Our site www.suncamp.nl has, for language reasons, 2 redirects So : www.suncamp.nl is redirected with a 301 to www.suncamp.nl/nl/nl and is than redirected 301 to http://www.suncamp.nl/nl/nl/home/uc19-l1-n804/ My question is; is this bad for our SEO? Recently we've been doing a lot of linkbuilding and SEO copywriting, but in comparison with our competitors were lagging behind. So I'm looking for other bottlenecks. Kind regards, Dennis Overbeek My email: dennis@acsi.eu ACSI
Competitive Research | | SEO_ACSI0