I am having an issue with my rankings
-
I am having an issue with my rankings. I am not sure if there are issues with onpage dup content or with the way wordpress is behaving but there is no reason based upon the sites back link profile that the site shouldn't be ranking well. The site is mesocare.org. If anyone can help it would be appreciated.
-
Just looking at the anchor text in your back link profile alone gives clues to why it's hard to rank - http://moz.com/researchtools/ose/anchors?page=1&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mesocare.org%2F - that is, the anchors are mainly commercial keywords that one would try to rank for - this is exactly the site of link building that is not working as much, and will even get you penalized in extreme cases.
You have links on such pages as this: http://blogs.creighton.edu/klb89788/2012/08/31/hello-world/ and this http://wsn.eecs.berkeley.edu/?p=56 etc etc - which are not going to help and will likely only hurt the site in rankings.
Unfortunately this will take quite a bit of effort and work to overcome. You'll really have to show Google over time (6-12 months at least) some more quality signals - not only links but user metrics etc as well.
-
Google and being able to rank certain sites (especially affiliate and especially in health related fields) has changed a lot and has gotten much harder in recent years. The same tactics that worked in 2011/2012 won't work now. I'd say it was probably a little too artificially easy to rank those sites in the past, and now might be more a reflection of reality.
(I'll add more in another response)
-
The site does have some nice authority and link metrics.
I would start by targeting your on-page SEO a little better. Some tips:
-
Add more related headings (the H1 tag was only used)
-
sub pages could use better heading structure as well (missing H1 tags)
-
Add some bold content (every little bit helps in this competitive space)
-
Update your img alt tags (multiple images just use 'mesothelioma as alt text)
-
Strengthen your intra-linking architecture. I.e. add contextual links pointing to authority topics on your site (from one article to another)
-
-
I have been in the mesothelioma lead gen space for a long time. Ranked several websites successfully. Don't know why I can't this time.
-
I have been in the mesothelioma lead gen space for a long time. Ranked several websitea successfully. Don't know why I can't this time.
-
I wouldn't be so certain that you should rank high - Mesothelioma and related search are very competitive terms to try and rank for. It is a huge market for lead generation.
Start by tracking where your ranking is and work to improve the ranks incrementally. With such competitive terms, you really need to frame out your expectations and long-term goals.
Go back and answer this question for further strategies to execute:
- What are the top 10 search results doing to rank for those keywords?
-
The primary keyword I am trying to rank for is mesothelioma. Some other keywords to rank for are
Mesothelioma doctorMesothelioma treatmentMesothelioma symptomsMesothelioma victimsMesothelioma life expectancyI am not expecting to rank in the top 10 but should definitely be in the 20s but my site is nowhere.
-
You're missing some key questions to diagnose what you need:
-
What are you trying to rank for?
-
Which pages are you trying to rank?
-
What are the top 10 search results doing to rank for those keywords?
-
What are your pages doing to compete for ranking of those keywords?
Only after those questions are answered can we begin to analyse your site ranking.
-
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
-
What I am Doing Wrong with My Rank
Hi, I am doing something wrong but I don't understand what is the issue. The rank of my website for a particular keyword is by far lower than one of my competitors (they are in top 20 while I am not even in top 50 in google). I did all fixes recommended by MOZ, I have higher number of backlinks (natural built), relatively similar social media activities, bigger content but still I'm far away. Do you have any idea what is wrong? Best, Tony
Technical SEO | | Threeding.com0 -
PageSpeed Insights DNS Issue
Hi Anyone else having problems with Google's Pagespeed tool? I am trying to benchmark a couple of my sites but, according to Google, my sites are not loading. They will work when I run them through the test at one point but if I try again, say 15 mins later, they will present the following error message An error has occured DNS error while resolving DOMAIN. Check the spelling of the host, and ensure that the page is accessible from the public Internet. You may refresh to try again. If the problem persists, please visit the PageSpeed Insights mailing list for support. This isn't too much an issue for testing page speed but am concerned that if Google is getting this error on the speed test it will also get the error when trying to crawl and index the pages. I can confirm the sites are up and running. I the sites are pointed at the server via A-records and haven't been changed for many weeks so cannot be a dns updating issue. Am at a loss to explain. Any advice would be most welcome. Thanks.
Technical SEO | | daedriccarl0 -
Duplicate content issue with Wordpress tags?
Would Google really discount duplicate content created by Wordpress tags? I find it hard to believe considering tags are on and indexed by default and the vast majority of users would not know to deindex them . . .
Technical SEO | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Noindex nofollow issue
Hi, For some reason 2 pages on my website, time to time get noindex nofollow tags they disappear from search engine, i have to log in my thesis wp theme and uncheck box for "noindex" "nofollow" and them update, in couple days my website is back up. here is screen shot http://screencast.com/t/A6V6tIr2Cb6 Is that something in thesis theme that cause the problem? even though i unchecked the box and updated but its still stays checked http://screencast.com/t/TnjDcYfsH4sq appreciated for your help!
Technical SEO | | tonyklu0 -
Issues with trailing slash url
Recently, we have changed our website to www.example.com/super-rentals/ (example) and we have done a 301 redirection to the new urls from the old one. We have noticed in Google webmaster tool that urls without trailing slash as 404 error. www.example.com/super-rentals. Please let us know how to fix this issue as soon as possible. Note: Our previous urls are not the urls without trailing slash. It is a different url (www.example.com/super-rentals.htm) we have rewritten in to www.example.com/super-rentals/ only. I would like to know why GWT pulls out the urls without trailing slash and shows in 404 error. Thanks for your time
Technical SEO | | massimobrogi0 -
Canonical Issues
Hi Guys, I have a technical question. Ive started optimising an ecommerce site for a client and come across some duplicate content issues:- This page: http://www.bracknelllamps.com/projector-manufacturer/SANYO/70 is actually indexed in Google as:- http://www.bracknelllamps.com/projector-lamps.php?make=SANYO Both pages have the same content and I'm guessing the indexed page refers to an old way of navigating the site. As I'm concerned about duplicate content issues, what's the best approach as this seems to be the case for all 'projector manufacturer' pages. would it be to 301 redirect each manufacturer url (this could take forever with 107) manufacturers or rel="canonical" tag? to show Google which page I want indexing? Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | nezona0 -
Domain authority and rankings?
I have a site that sits in #1 position for its keywords right now. But it only got there about 1mth ago. The site is only about 6mths old with lots of link building. I check the domain authority and its only 37/100 with the #2, #3 sites having domain authority of 57 and 82 respectively. This site has like 800+ backlinks. While the #2 and #3 sites have 20,000+ backlinks. Does it mean that my site will LIKELY drop in rankings very soon? I know there is no certainty but wld you say that it is highly probable my site will drop?
Technical SEO | | jl2550 -
Viral page not ranking onGoogle
A user generated talk thread on our social networking site went viral yesterday and generated around 36000 extra visits. But, when we Google the key phrase in this thread our site is not even in the Top 50. Instead the pages are dominated by other (lesser) websites referring to the content and linking to the thread The page is indexed The on page SEO grade for the key phrase and variant according to SEOMoz is A Our home page has a PR of 7 and an SEO Domain Authority of 76 We are the original source of this content Other talk threads on different subjects in a similar category are ranking on page 1 of Google. What's happening?
Technical SEO | | CecilyP0