About page showing in SERPS instead of Home page
-
I launched a daycare website a few months ago. For some reason Google does not like my home page. I know there is a lot more I can do to promote the website in general, but I can't figure out why, when I search for the brand name, the about page shows up followed by a few external listings, but no result for the home page anywhere. It is indeed indexed (checked site: and tried searching for an exact phrase in quotes and ran all the tests in webmaster tools), but it just isn't showing up.
Can anyone see anything I'm missing? If you google "hello world daycare" (in victoria bc, canada) you'll see the about page for helloworlddaycare.com.
Any help you can provide to solve this mystery would be much appretiated!
-
Ok, I guess it's maily a matter of doing general domain wide seo then and being patient. Still not entirely sure why a subpage would be considered higher authority as the main page all other things being equal, but thanks for the answers!
-
Hi -
You will have to earn some authority for the domain to be able to rank the home page first. Since there is almost no authority on site, google believes that the about page is better.
What i'd do?
-
Get the brand out in the market and earn some back links (pure white hat on authority sites) on branded keyword
-
Something to consider -- you consider the canonical with "/" in the end for homepage, whereas your site doesn't show up that way. I'd propose you either trail it with "/" in both places or not. But be consistent.
I'm sure this will work. It's just matter of time.
- Kiruba
-
-
The canonical tags look fine. I don't think that's the issue here. I think this is just a newer domain that doesn't have a lot of links. When I popped the site into Majestic SEO the About, Blog and Home Page had the, or similar citation flow. Though it's not the entire link profile, that's something to think about.
There are some general things that could possibly be done to improve the site itself. There's a lot of different CSS files. There's also inline styling. If it can be done, it would be a good idea to get rid of the inline styles and combine/minify the CSS rules.
Plus the text to code ratio is pretty low all around. You may want to consider ways to add more content, or reduce the amount of code. This isn't a huge deal, and there isn't an exact percentage, but with few links to go on - the next consideration is on-page content.
So, I would say try to get more niche/local directory links pointed at the home page and this will eventually work itself out. I wouldn't jump the gun and attempt to remove the about page. Plus, I'm fairly certain demotion is related to site links in that would show under the domain in organic search.
-
Have you implemented Rel=canonical tags properly? That might be a contributing factor.
Another thing you might try is going into Google Webmaster Tools and demoting the About page. Sometimes that will help push other pages higher up in priority for SERP.
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
-
YouTube Videos on SERPS
Hi there, One of my clients is asking why there's this big SEO result when https://www.google.es/search?q=botemania+youtube&oq=botemani&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0j69i61j69i57j0l2.1149j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. What kind of search results are thos with this big video first result? Any tips how to achieve this? Something related with the views, video description?. I tested a few other similar queries, even big brands included in the search query and this kind of SEO result does not show up. Any help would be appreciated, thanks! qGwcE
Image & Video Optimization | | poliedric0 -
Trying to Merge Google + Local and Google Business Page _ How to?
Hi I have been reading so many posts about merging Google Plus + (Places) accounts and the new Google + Business Pages. I am working with a business who has a verified account in both. How ( and in fact should we try and merge). The old Places page has a review the newly create Business Page does not but is better optimized. Any help would be gratefully received as my head is spinning/ PS based in New Zealand
Image & Video Optimization | | AllieMc0 -
Does google places mind listing cities on the home page
Hello, A site in our industry is listing a bunch of cities on their home page and ranking for them. Like "Our dog training facility provides services to dogs in city1,city2,city3,city4,city5,city6 state" where the cities and states are relatively in their area. It's working organically, will this confuse google places? Thanks!
Image & Video Optimization | | BobGW0 -
Google+ Places Page Showing Wrong Information
Hi There, I have a client who's runs three nuseries (pre schools) A, B and C and has three differen googe+ pages all with different addresses so no problem there. However I noticed that if I clicked on on of them in the Google places account settings listing A would show the details of listing B and not it's own. Thinking this was a glitch I deleted listing A and was about to set up another one. I entered the phone number and it brought up the details to the listing B as sharing the same phone number. Is this is what's causing the issue? Can businesses share the same phone number in the same locality and have two different listings, despite having two different addresses? Kind Regards Neil
Image & Video Optimization | | jmaycock0 -
What to do if your categories are missing from Google Places/Plus page?
A client's Google Places/Plus page used to show four or five categories. Now, Google only shows one category. When I go inside their edit page, all of the categories are still listed. Is this a temporary occurrence? Does anyone have a similar experience or advice on this?None of the competitors seem to have the same issue. Ever since the Google plus integration, it's been impossible to see any changes updated.
Image & Video Optimization | | micasalucasa0 -
Local SEO Issue: Google Places Listing on Page 8
Hello, I'm having an issue with a client's Google Places listing. It's showing on page 8 for one of the main keyword terms but their main site is on page 1. Having looked into competitors' places listings ranking above, I've ruled out the following; lack of citations inconsistent citations incomplete profile incorrect category listing details not matching places landing page incorrect location and any form of keyword stuffing Other places listings ranking above have fewer citations, incomplete profiles, details inconsistent with their main site, one is no longer trading as a business and one has no website! In the past, our client had had two listings simultaneously but we addressed this waaaay back. Is it possible we could still be getting punished? I'm at a bit of a loss otherwise. Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated. Thankyou!
Image & Video Optimization | | jasarrow0 -
Target inside pages for specific country
Hi! How are you? I'm having the following problem: I have a client that has a big multilingual website, in spanish, portugese and english. The server is in Brazil, but he wants to migrate it to USA. I think that this will affect my SERPs in Brazil, and Brazil is the most important country where we need to be first in SERPs. I'd like to, somehow, tell Google that http://website.com/pt is for Brazil and http://website.com/es is for Argentina, so I can avoid the problem that I'll have when the migration is completed and I lose my brazilian IP. Do you have any tips on what should I do? Thanks! Best wishes, Ariel
Image & Video Optimization | | arielbortz0 -
Google Shopping in SERPS - What % of clicks do they get?
Howdy, Looking for any data we can get on the % of click through the shopping results are getting in Google SERPs. There are tons of variables: how many products & which position the shopping feeds and images are shown in but any hard data would be helpful. The background is that we have a client who ranks #1 in Google for a shopping related term and their organic traffic is down in 2011 for this main keyword which has ranked #1 all year since the shopping feeds are continually showing above or below the 1st Google position vs sporadic or no display in years prior. I.e. They aren't happy the traffic is down & we are looking for some data we can provide them with beyond, "Google shopping is now eating part of your organic traffic for that term". Many thanks in advance!!
Image & Video Optimization | | WebpageFX0