Why is a poor optimized url ranked first on Google ?
-
Hi there, I've been working in SEO for more than five years and I'm always telling clients about the more than 200 factors that influence rankings, but sometimes I meet several urls or websites who haven't optimized their pages nor built links and still appear first.
This is the case of the keyword "Escorts en Tenerife" in google.es. If you search that keyword in google.es you'll find this url: escortislacanarias.com... (I don't want to give them a link).
My question is why the heck this url is ranking first on Google for that keyword if the url isn't optmized, the page content isn't optimized and hasn't got many or valuable incoming links?
Do an on page grader to that url regarding that keyword an it gets an F !!! So there is no correlation between better optimization and good rankings.
-
Thansk again for the effort. I like your answers, they are very helpful. Although in this case our target aren't English speaking people, just Spanish people from or in Tenerife for vacations.
-
_Google knows that Tenerife is a geographic location in the Canary Islands. This website has the word Tenerife on it many times. It has pages with Tenerife in the title, in the URL. _
Egol is just explaining why their page shows up for 'Tenerife' searches.
I have no idea if you're targeting tourists, but I expect you are, this means you're effectively targeting two types of customer - those that plan ahead and those than plan 'on the fly'.
So if I wanted an escort for my trip to Tenerife (LOL, no, I don't... happily married lady!) I might search for one before I leave the UK to get it all organised ahead of time. So I would search 'Escorts in Tenerife' (and maybe localise even further to find one close to where I was staying)...
Or, I may be lonely on one night when I get to Tenerife, and do a search to find an escort from Tenerife.
These two scenarios might show different results - the person searching from Tenerife would get localised results, whereas the person searching from the UK is relying on 'Tenerife' being included on the website to appear in the SERPs.
I hope this makes sense!
I think Egol has a lot of great information to share, and I've often found his /her responses to questions in this forum to be very useful and informative. That last comment though was a little harsh, but the point is: _if you feel the current situation is hard to overcome, then imagine how bad it would be if they did know what they are doing!!! _This is how I read it anyway. Perhaps it's just a case of what my colleague calls ‘the impersonal interaction impertinence imperative’ - sounds like something from the hitch hikers guide, doesn't it! But basically means sometimes written, impersonal communications, can be misinterpreted. I often send stuff that sounds harsher than it's meant to be because I forget that sarcasm and suchlike are not easy to interpret in written form!
I'm glad you found my answer helpful
-
Agreed the end user doesn't care about SEO. But if the user experience is even horrendous difficult to navigate it must have a high bounce rate.
One site I am not going to mention but the server he is running is blacklisted for email spam, I know one SEO company report them for Spam to Google, they're keywords stuff, poor user experience looks like its from 1999 and has spammy links. Still sites above sites which if we took Google advise. High quality content, good user experience, not too many links on page,nice and quick to load it is absolutely everything opposite to Google is recommending.
-
Hi and thanks for the comment. It helps. But tell me, what are the great insights you are talking about EGOL? Did I miss anything? Was his/their answer profound for you? I really can't see any good in EGOL's answer but a bit of arrogance instead.
That kind of answer doesn't help. Yours, on the other hand, is very usefeul, thank you ameliavargo ! I really did like and very much appreciate your third parragraph most of all !
-
I completely agree with you, there seems to be no correlation. I don't mean to say all this metrics don't work or aren't useful, I0m just saying there are sites up there in top positions and they still don't deserve it according to moz tools, for example. Thanks for your comment.
-
1.- I did give them a mention and I knew it would be good for them, but I did it because I wanted moz people to understand the precise case, but perhaps I was wrong in that, in that case sorry.
2.- I didn't say it was hard to beat. I'm only asking why is that url on top position when according to all metrics it doesn't deserve it. There are 3 or 4 competitors that have more and better incoming links, a better page optimization, better content, etc.
About user experience. have you entered the site? Did you really see anything that you did like of that page for the user?
What would you say is the main reason for them to be on top? "This website has the word Tenerife on it many times. It has pages with Tenerife in the title, in the URL." So that is your conclusion ? Thanks in advance.
-
As always, EGOL has some great insights and I agree with them...
Onsite usage metrics are also used in the algo. I'm not entirely sure exactly what Google uses, but I imagine it's something like bounce rate (though not bounce rate as they've said they don't use it... but they lie too so they might do!...), time on site, pages per visit - that kind of thing. The stuff that tells you if people are engaging with your website.
They also use organic CTR (though again, I don't think this is ever explicitly stated by them) - if your CTR is high then they will reward you (though a high CTR with bad usage metrics would not on its own help you - rather hinder I think).
This is why pi$$ poor sites often end up in high positions - people like them. Doesn't always make sense, but if the site you mention provides something people want, they aren't going to CARE whether it's been 'SEO'd' or not - and really Google doesn't either. If visitor behaviour indicates that people are getting value from visiting that site then Google is not going to move it from its high position - until you provide something that people like more and importantly onsite behaviour indicates the same.
Hope this helps
-
Google knows that Tenerife is a geographic location in the Canary Islands. This website has the word Tenerife on it many times. It has pages with Tenerife in the title, in the URL.
Even though you did not give them a link you gave them a mention... and in the same sentence you associated it with the keyword that you are searching for. All of that helps them.
Google thinks beyond the page.
If you think this website is hard to beat, wait until they get an SEO who knows what to do.
-
I don't think Google really has sorted the algo's out, there seems to be absolutely no correlation. There are sites on my targeted keyword list which no way should be on the 1st page of Google however they're up at the top. Even with higher domain authority, page authority better link profile and sites speed. Sites which are keyword stuffed also rank in the top 3 positions.
It would be great to see what other moz'ers are experiencing
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
-
Fetch and render partial result could this affect SERP rankings [NSFW URL]
Moderator's Note: URL NSFW We have been desperately trying to understand over the last 10 days why our homepage disappears for a few days in the SERPS for our most important keywords, before reappearing again for a few more days and then gone again! We have tried everything. Checked Google webmaster - no manual actions, no crawl errors, no messages. The site is being indexed even when it disappears but when it's gone it will not even appear in the search results for our business name. Other internal pages come up instead. We have searched for bad back links. Duplicate content. We put a 301 redirect on the non www. version of the site. We added a H1 tag that was missing. Still after fetching as Google and requesting reindexing we were going through this cycle of disappearing in the rankings (an internal page would actually come in at 6th position as opposed to our home page which had previously spent years in the number 2 spot) and then coming back for a few days. Today I tried fetch and render as Google and was only getting a partial result. It was saying the video that we have embedded on our home page was temporarily unavailable. Could this have been causing the issue? We have removed the video for now and fetched and rendered and returned a complete status. I've now requested reindexing and am crossing everything that this fixes the problem. Do you think this could have been at the root of the problem? If anyone has any other suggestions the address is NSFW https://goo.gl/dwA8YB
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GemmaApril2 -
What to try when Google excludes your URL only from high-traffic search terms and results?
We have a high authority blog post (high PA) that used to rank for several high-traffic terms. Right now the post continues to rank high for variations of the high-traffic terms (e.g keyword + " free", keyword + " discussion") but the URL has been completed excluded from the money terms with alternative URLs of the domain ranking on positions 50+. There is no manual penalty in place or a DCMA exclusion. What are some of the things ppl would try here? Some of the things I can think of: - Remove keyword terms in article - Change the URL and do a 301 redirect - Duplicate the POST under new URL, 302 redirect from old blog post, and repoint links as much as you have control - Refresh content including timestamps - Remove potentially bad neighborhood links etc Has anyone seen the behavior above for their articles? Are there any recommendations? /PP
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ppseo800 -
Duplicating relevant category content in subcategories. Good or bad for google ranking?
In a travel related page I have city categories with city related information.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lcourse
Would you recommend for or against duplicating some relevant city related in subcategory pages. For visitor it would be useful and google should have more context about the topic of our page.
But my main concern is how this may be perceived by google and especially whether it may make it more likely being penalized for thin content. We already were hit end of june by panda/phantom and we are working on adding also more unique content, but this would be something that we could do additionally and basically instantaneously. Just do not want to make things worse.0 -
Removing Parameterized URLs from Google Index
We have duplicate eCommerce websites, and we are in the process of implementing cross-domain canonicals. (We can't 301 - both sites are major brands). So far, this is working well - rankings are improving dramatically in most cases. However, what we are seeing in some cases is that Google has indexed a parameterized page for the site being canonicaled (this is the site that is getting the canonical tag - the "from" page). When this happens, both sites are being ranked, and the parameterized page appears to be blocking the canonical. The question is, how do I remove canonicaled pages from Google's index? If Google doesn't crawl the page in question, it never sees the canonical tag, and we still have duplicate content. Example: A. www.domain2.com/productname.cfm%3FclickSource%3DXSELL_PR is ranked at #35, and B. www.domain1.com/productname.cfm is ranked at #12. (yes, I know that upper case is bad. We fixed that too.) Page A has the canonical tag, but page B's rank didn't improve. I know that there are no guarantees that it will improve, but I am seeing a pattern. Page A appears to be preventing Google from passing link juice via canonical. If Google doesn't crawl Page A, it can't see the rel=canonical tag. We likely have thousands of pages like this. Any ideas? Does it make sense to block the "clicksource" parameter in GWT? That kind of scares me.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC0 -
Google Indexing Duplicate URLs : Ignoring Robots & Canonical Tags
Hi Moz Community, We have the following robots command that should prevent URLs with tracking parameters being indexed. Disallow: /*? We have noticed google has started indexing pages that are using tracking parameters. Example below. http://www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/original-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table/1149.html http://www.oakfurnitureland.co.uk/furniture/original-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table/1149.html?ec=affee77a60fe4867 These pages are identified as duplicate content yet have the correct canonical tags: https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&site=&source=hp&q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.oakfurnitureland.co.uk%2Ffurniture%2Foriginal-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table%2F1149.html&oq=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.oakfurnitureland.co.uk%2Ffurniture%2Foriginal-rustic-solid-oak-4-drawer-storage-coffee-table%2F1149.html&gs_l=hp.3..0i10j0l9.4201.5461.0.5879.8.8.0.0.0.0.82.376.7.7.0....0...1c.1.58.hp..3.5.268.0.JTW91YEkjh4 With various affiliate feeds available for our site, we effectively have duplicate versions of every page due to the tracking query that Google seems to be willing to index, ignoring both robots rules & canonical tags. Can anyone shed any light onto the situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBGlobalSEO0 -
Product Page on Eccomerce Site ranking very poorly - Unique Product description but duplicate content on other tabs.
Hi All, I have a query regarding my Product pages on my eCommerce site. I have unique Product descriptions but some of the other page content on the other tabs i.e Hire Terms , Delivery , About the Hire Company - Are duplicated across ALL my products. Is that okay or how should I deal with them ? See example url of one of my products below below - http://goo.gl/aSFPqP My products currently rank very badly... 200 + so Any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Google News URL Structure
Hi there folks I am looking for some guidance on Google News URLs. We are restructuring the site. A main traffic driver will be the traffic we get from Google News. Most large publishers use: www.site.com/news/12345/this-is-the-title/ Others use www.example.com/news/celebrity/12345/this-is-the-title/ etc. www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ www.example.com/celebrity-news/12345/this-is-the-title/ (Celebrity is a channel on Google News so should we try and follow that format?) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title/12345/ www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/this-is-the-title-12345/ (unique ID no at the end and part of the title URL) www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ Others include the date. So as you can see there are so many combinations and there doesnt seem to be any unity across news sites for this format. Have you any advice on how to structure these URLs? Particularly if we want to been seen as an authority on the following topics: fashion, hair, beauty, and celebrity news - in particular "celebrity name" So should the celebrity news section be www.example.com/news/celebrity-news/celebrity-name/this-is-the-title-12345/ or what? This is for a completely new site build. Thanks Barry
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Deepti_C0 -
Does anyone have any tips for optimizing your Google Product Feeds?
How often do you submit them? What have you seen work? Are there any tricks aside from filling out all of the data fields?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eric_since1910.com1