Search Result Brings Up Home Page
-
Hi all,
I've been looking at some SEO work on our new CMS site that's been up for a few months now and when doing a search for a particular page which I know has good SEO and received a 'B' rating on the MOZ on page grader, our home page shows up and not our relevant page.
I don't exactly want to worsen the SEO on our home page so that it doesn't show up, but why would my home page which is fairly generic and covers a large area of the business show up rather than the specific page which I am searching with exact keywords for?
For example: If I was searching for 'bananas' my home page for fruits would show up rather than my bananas page which has been tailored around those keywords.
Thanks
-
Sometimes the links pointing to the homepage make it strong enough that even a slight mention of the words can make it more relevant than the page in the eyes of the search engine. Other times older versions of a page were redirected to the homepage rather than page > page. What also happens sometimes is that duplicate content on a page will cause a page to be hidden in search results and Google will instead return the homepage in its place (usually in a lower position than the page would have been.)
-
Andy is right on all accounts.
I would suggest you use the Moz tool bar ( http://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar) and look a the page authority of all the pages on your website. That would be a major indicator of what is going on with the home page ranking over the bananas page.
If the page authority is the problem you should link from some of your higher authority pages to the page you wish to rank ( Bananas page). I would also add some outside links from high authority relevant pages to the bananas page as well. You also may want to look at the titles and descriptions for each page and make sure they are in line with the main keywords you are trying to rank for.
Hope that helps direct your efforts to fix the situation.
joe
-
Hi
There is a number of factors including relevancy, but also Page Authority. If sites that are relevant about bananas are linking to your home page, Google might assumed that the home page is the most appropriate page for queries relating to bananas.
Also does your 'bananas' page have many links pointing to it, is it included in your sitemap, do you link to the page from your home page.
Without your actual url its quite hard to be specific for the actual reason.
Thanks
Andy
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
-
Incorrect Image returned in Yahoo search results
A client (healthcare practice) is reporting an incorrect profile image associated with one of their providers (another provider in the same practice). They sent a screenshot. I've been unable to replicate the issue, and Yahoo is only 4% of the search traffic. Questions: Is 4% search traffic from Yahoo roughly normal? Is it lately increasing? I'm finding reports of malware Chrome/Firefox extensions that switches the default search engine to Yahoo search to drive revenue. This client was formerly on Yext, and possibly, someone could have associated the wrong image. Would WhiteSpark or Moz Local be of any help? Do you know a way for us to address the problem? Request a re-crawl from Yahoo or request removal? Thanks in advance.
Local Website Optimization | | firecatsue0 -
Some of my brand keywords have a suspicious constant search visibility percentage.
Hi, I am having doubts about my search visibility on my brand key words, all of them have a constant rate of 32.50% and don't move up or down in months, even that when I track my site it has a great variety of organic entries each week. what can be the issue, if it's an issue, or why it's the search visibility not changing? Thanks for your responses.
Local Website Optimization | | garcia.meme0 -
Which URL and rel=canonical structure to use for location based product inventory pages?
I am working on an automotive retailer site that displays local car inventory in nearby dealerships based on location. Within the site, a zip code is required to search, and the car inventory is displayed in a typical product list that can be filtered and sorted by the searcher to fit the searchers needs. We would like to structure these product inventory list pages that are based on location to give the best chance at ranking, if not now, further down the road when we have built up more authority to compete with the big dogs in SERP like AutoTrader.com, TrueCar.com, etc. These higher authority sites are able to rank their location based car inventory pages on the first page consistently across all makes and models. For example, searching the term "new nissan rogue" in the Los Angeles, CA area returns a few location based inventory pages on page 1. The sites in the industry that are able to rank their inventory pages will display a relatively clean looking URL with no redirect that still displays the local inventory like this in the SERP:
Local Website Optimization | | tdastru
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue
but almost always use a rel=canonical tag within the page to a page with a location parameter attached to the end of the URL like this one:
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/New+Cars/Nissan/Rogue/Los+Angeles+CA-90001"/>
I'm having a hard time figuring out why sites like this example have their URLs and pages structured this way. What would be the best practice for structuring the URL and rel=canonical tags to be able to rank for and display location based inventory pages for cars near the searcher?0 -
Do location pages boost the homepage?
Google has stated that businesses should spend time creating location pages for the various service areas that businesses operate in. What I want to know is, it is equally about boosting the relevance of the site as a whole, as well as ranking that individual page in the local area. Does Google take into account the fact that you have the location page and reward the homepage by favoring it more in that local area, or is it simply about ranking an individual page in each town/city?
Local Website Optimization | | OliverNeely2 -
Multiple location pages are they bad?
Hello all, I am research some competitors of a client of mine. My client specializes in H.P. printer repair and over the last 8 years has lost market shares to the competition. I want to reclaim market share. As I was searching some of the service companies many have page that list multiple towns that they service. here is an example. http://printerrepairservice.com/locations-we-service/ Should I be recommending this to my client? To me it seems like a spam keyword process. I know an employee of this particular company and he say their online business is booming. I want my clients to boom too! What are your thoughts on these location type pages?
Local Website Optimization | | donsilvernail0 -
Virtual Offices & Google Search
United Kingdom We have a client who works from home and wants a virtual office so his clients do not know where he lives. Can a virtual office address be used on his business website pages & contact pages, in title tags and descriptions as well as Google places. The virtual office is manned at all times and phone calls will be directed to the client, the virtual office company say effectively it is a registered business address. Look forward to any helpful responses.
Local Website Optimization | | ChristinaRadisic0 -
Is it okay for my H3 Tag to appear above my H2 Tag on the Web Page
Hello All, I am currently doing my H1 ,H2, H3 Tags on my redesigned website We have the ability to have links to relevant DIY Guides on the bottom of our webpage and these are currently displayed under a heading "DIY Useful Guides" above my on page content which is at the bottom of the page. My H2 Tag will obviously be the title that sits above my On Page Content at the bottom of the Webpage and I was going to do the H3 Tag for my DIY Guides Is it a problem if the H3 tag sits above the H2 Tag on the Page or not ? Or have i got this wrong and I need to move the DIY Guides (links) to below the on page content so the H3 tag sits below the H2 tag? thanks Pete OTmPbbR
Local Website Optimization | | PeteC120 -
Local site went from dominating first page - bad plugin caused duplicate content issues - now to 2nd page for all!
I had a bad plugin create duplicate content issues on my Wordpress CMS - www.pmaaustin.com I got it fixed, but now every keyword has been stuck on page 2 for search terms for 4 months now, where I was 49 out of 52 keywords on page one. It's a small local niche with mostly easier to rank keywords. Am I missing something? p.s. Also has a notice on the Dashboard that says: "404 Redirected: There are 889 captured 404 URLs that need to be processed." Could that be a problem? Thanks, Steve
Local Website Optimization | | OhYeahSteve0