Why do other sites rank higher for our blog content?
-
Our site has always allowed other sites to RSS feed our content. Recently, we've noticed that searches for a title of our blog post will rank 2 sites that only publish said content, while our links are nowhere to be seen on the SERPs for Google.
Is there any way I can fix this or prod Google to adjust it for us?
Background: We were ranked highly in many long tail keywords, but lost many of them in June 2013. During this time going forward, we received no manual action.
-
The scraper's canonical tag points to their own site. I just added canonical tags to our content. I hope we win out.
-
When the same article appears on two websites and one of those has an rel=canonical pointing to the other website, then the site with the rel=canonical should not be indexed.
-
So I looked into the articles on both sites.
1)The first offender uses but links our original url using a <a href""=""> saying our page is the "source."</a>
<a href""="">2)The second offender just uses our titles and doesn't really have our content on their site, but links to the original page.
If I "play around" with cross domain canonicals that will probably help in the future, but will Google de-rank the articles posted by the first offender?</a>
-
You are getting a lot of diverse answers but Moosa has identified the key....
My advice would be to get quick links, whoever is syndicating your content ask them to link to the main source plus try playing around with cross domain canonicals and that might really help if the people who syndicate your content can add it on their website.
It does not matter who gets indexed first, adds new posts to sitemap, gets tweeted, gets fetched... Google generally respects strength and generally obeys canonicals.
-
Hey,
Depending upon authority, other pages are getting indexed earlier than yours. Best thing to avoid this thing
1. Submit Your Sitemap in Webmaster Tools to make your indexing fast
2. Whenever you add a blog post, make it indexed through this Google Tool: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url This works pretty quick.
3. Socialize your blog post immediatelyI hope this will help the cause!
Regards
-
I have found that a great way to take 'ownership' of your content is to immediately submit it to the Google index as soon as it goes live.
You can do this through Google Webmaster Tools.
Then, from the menu Crawl --> Fetch as Google.
Then, enter your URL, Fetch it, and Submit it to the index.
This should resolve your issue.
Note: Ensure that you get a confirmation message indicating that the page was submitted. Sometimes, it doesn't work on the first try.
-
I guess there are two parts in the question so let me go one by one!
Why other websites are ranking above mine? Exactly, when they use your RSS feed, they probably might get crawled quicker than the original content and that is why the problem starts!
My advice would be to get quick links, whoever is syndicating your content ask them to link to the main source plus try playing around with cross domain canonicals and that might really help if the people who syndicate your content can add it on their website.
You lost good amount of ranking positions in June 2013, I checked Moz Google Penalty calendar and finds out that there are 3 Google updates in June 2013 that are:
- Payday Loan on 11<sup>th</sup> June
- Panda dance on the same day
- Multi Week update on June 27, 2013
See if the traffic drop is around these days and in case of yes you know what the problem on your website is, consider fixing it!
Hope this helps!
-
Google uses a lot of different factors to determine why one site ranks above another site. However, when it comes to duplicate content (other sites using your site's RSS feed to generate content on their site), Google determines who posted the content first--and then the others are considered to be duplicates.
In your case, most likely the other sites are getting crawled quicker--therefore you are not the one who is originating the content, according to Google. You need Google to crawl your site quicker, and that typically is determined by how often you post content and the links to your content. Get more quality links to your site, and make sure you post on your social profiles (twitter, google plus, facebook, linkedin) whenever you post on your 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
-
Best Practices for Recurring Blog Topics
Our site has annual articles (such as a payment calendar and an announcement of our annual conference). Is it better to keep all the old blog articles available and searchable, redirect them to the most current year's entry, or something else entirely? My instinct is to have a permanent redirect to the newest article.
Content Development | | GwenKestrel1 -
Where do I place my blog
Sorry but this has probably been discussed earlier, but things change all the time. Gonna start blogging about my webside.
Content Development | | helgeolaussen
Where should I place my blog to get most SEO benefits for my main page?
mysite.xx/blog
blog.mysite.xx (on a server with diffrent ip)
An external TDL.0 -
Sell your writing or make your blog to publish it ?
Hii would like to know that should we sell our own written articles on freelancing site or any other sites. or we have to make our own blog and publish it on. Because I see most words that content quality is very important, So what do you think i sell the writing or publish it on my website. Actually i register a domain mbgadget and just want to know what should i do, i sell my writing or publish it on my blog what to do, I don't know if there is any other stratgy that you know, to make some bucks online in a same manner what to do, please explain it.
Content Development | | seom20140 -
How to best host a blog - standalone or on the site?
HI We are redesiging our site currently - at the moment we have a low key blog on the site which is pretty well hidden (to be changed with redesign) but is hosted as brand.com/blog name. I have been advised it might be a good idea on relaunch to have the blog as a standalone blog linking back to our main site but also having a graphic on the site that promotes the blog. The blog does not currently have the same name as the website so would work as a standalone site but I understand it would not have any seo benefits from the original site. I have seen on previous posts here that the best practise is domain.com/blog but wondered if anyone thought different? Hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks, Penny
Content Development | | Pday0 -
Blog setup best practices
Does SEOmoz have any "best practices" on setting a wordpress blog? Things such as essential plugins, best practices on category structure, what to do and not to do? Thank you!
Content Development | | seomozinator0 -
Typepad.com blog migration & duplicate content
I've migrated a typepad.com blog with a bunch of content (but little traffic) onto a hosted WordPress site under my own domain name (the way I should've done it in the first place). Now I don't want to confuse Google that the new site is duplicating content from the other site, so would I be better off with: 1) meta-refresh redirecting each typepad.com post to the same post on the new blog, or 2) just killing the typepad.com blog entirely so Google will not find duplicate posts anywhere. In favor of #2 is the fact that these posts get very little traffic today. I figure I will lose more traffic from duplicate content ranking penalties than from losing the posts themselves in the original blog. What do you think?
Content Development | | chriscrabtree0 -
Wordpress hacked. Entire content wiped out
Someone hacked my Wordpress site, wiped out all my content and changed my login status to a subscriber. Years of hard work gone, I can't log in to fix anything. Is there anything I can do. Is there a way to prevent this from happening ever again. Is there a way to catch these people?
Content Development | | ArenaS0 -
Optimising my ecommerce blog
Hey guys, I am after suggestions on how i can better optimise my blog? www.imrubbish.co.uk/blog I have been getting regular blog posts up until say a month ago. Looking to get a new writer and get 3-4 blog posts a week done. Sometimes targeting products, sometimes general chat about bins. I am hoping you kind people can make a couple of suggestions i could be doing. Thank you
Content Development | | imrubbish0