Ranking without SEO?
-
We have a client that we've been doing white-hat SEO for for over 3 years and they've always been number 1 in Google for all their targeted keywords. This year, their competition has been ranking above them and our client has been pushed towards the bottom of the first page. After thorough research, we discovered that this competitor is doing no SEO at all, just regular PR which our client is also doing. Our client is even spending money in Adwords and their competition isn't. Can anyone explain how a website that does zero SEO can magically be ranked at the top now and above our competitor who we're doing everything possible for?
-
I've been doing it for years and have never come across this issue.
Look towards an algorithmic penalty too. There is no telling what could have caused this, so you need to cover all bases.
-Andy
-
Yep, our website has that as well. This isn't my first time doing SEO, I've been doing it for years and have never come across this issue. And yes, I'm using all the tools everyone suggested. I've done all of the "investigating" you're all suggesting, which is why I'm still stumped and asking. And it's not completely true that not spending in Adwords won't affect seo -- I've seen a lift in seo from paid ads for every single client. Coincidental? Probably not completely.
-
Can anyone explain how a website that does zero SEO can magically be ranked at the top now and above our competitor who we're doing everything possible for?
I'll bet that wikipedia does almost no SEO. They simply have a great template and great content.
Having a website full of great content is better than having two SEOs and five shills working full time.
-
Without actually looking at both sites, it is impossible to say why. It could be something or nothing. It could be just one link or over optimisation on your site?
I would do some digging and see what you come up with.
-Andy
-
Thanks all! When I said "no SEO" yes I'm sure they're doing some SEO here and there. But they don't even have title tags on their website which is bizarre to me since that's the foundation of on-site SEO. And in regards to content, we promote great, unique content all the time as well as through social channels. We have used tools like Moz, Ahref, and many others which is why I'm asking here to get some new insight we haven't thought of yet.
-
Doing 'No SEO' is probably a bit of a big assumption to make about your competitors. I'd be interested to know how you are coming to that conclusion.
Are they using the same PR channels as you or different?
It could be that Google just thinks your competitors content is more relevant to the users who are searching for the search terms. There are allot of articles around at the moment that suggest Google focuses on user behaviour to conclude SERPS.
We know how frustrating it can be knowing that you are doing everything correct in terms of SEO guidelines and still not performing above clients who look to be using black-hat techniques.
If you haven't done so already I would do a more thorough investigation into what might be causing your competitors to rank high. Use MOZ and other well known SEO tools to compare metrics like backlinks etc.
-
Hi Deedra,
It isn't about SEO per se, but if your client are trying too hard and then along comes a number of other clients, one who seemingly does no SEO at all, then you would have to look at both their content and backlinks. If someone is writing content (or has content) that Google sees as more reputable, then this could easily be part of their success.
If they are sharing externally, or via social channels, this could also be having a big positive push for them.
Our client is even spending money in Adwords and their competition isn't
This will have no impact on SEO at all.
Make sure that any link building you are doing is from good sources - make sure all content is amazing and better than others - make sure there is enough for other to want to share them through Social Media.
-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
-
Something is strange, should be ranking fairly well - no visibility.
Hi Guys, This one is freakin' me out a little. We built my site and optimised it fairly well, especially on this page: http://snowdog.se/dogsledding/ where I am trying to rank for search term "dog sledding in lapland" now I receive a 95 rating for optimisation, I cant see anything wrong with it. We have a sitemap all seems well enough in the Google search console data but heck!!, we have submitted it to major engines but I have zero percent visibility. Can anyone see what's going on here? Free Sleddog Trip to the winner. Hahahaha. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. It must be something simple or weird! Kind Regards, Sno.....
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sno3330 -
Reputable SEO companies
I am looking for a reputable SEO company to assist in link building. I have done many searches and find that there are many sites that have a "top 10." However I am finding they are listed there due to paying large amounts of money. Any recommendations on companies that can show real results and are not charging extreme amounts of money while using minimum wage interns to do all the work with crappy results. I had a few people suggest "internet marketing ninjas" if anyone has used, chime in. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | nchachula0 -
How to re-rank an established website with new content
I can't help but feel this is a somewhat untapped resource with a distinct lack of information.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ChimplyWebGroup
There is a massive amount of information around on how to rank a new website, or techniques in order to increase SEO effectiveness, but to rank a whole new set of pages or indeed to 're-build' a site that may have suffered an algorithmic penalty is a harder nut to crack in terms of information and resources. To start I'll provide my situation; SuperTED is an entertainment directory SEO project.
It seems likely we may have suffered an algorithmic penalty at some point around Penguin 2.0 (May 22nd) as traffic dropped steadily since then, but wasn't too aggressive really. Then to coincide with the newest Panda 27 (According to Moz) in late September this year we decided it was time to re-assess tactics to keep in line with Google's guidelines over the two years. We've slowly built a natural link-profile over this time but it's likely thin content was also an issue. So beginning of September up to end of October we took these steps; Contacted webmasters (and unfortunately there was some 'paid' link-building before I arrived) to remove links 'Disavowed' the rest of the unnatural links that we couldn't have removed manually. Worked on pagespeed as per Google guidelines until we received high-scores in the majority of 'speed testing' tools (e.g WebPageTest) Redesigned the entire site with speed, simplicity and accessibility in mind. Htaccessed 'fancy' URLs to remove file extensions and simplify the link structure. Completely removed two or three pages that were quite clearly just trying to 'trick' Google. Think a large page of links that simply said 'Entertainers in London', 'Entertainers in Scotland', etc. 404'ed, asked for URL removal via WMT, thinking of 410'ing? Added new content and pages that seem to follow Google's guidelines as far as I can tell, e.g;
Main Category Page Sub-category Pages Started to build new links to our now 'content-driven' pages naturally by asking our members to link to us via their personal profiles. We offered a reward system internally for this so we've seen a fairly good turnout. Many other 'possible' ranking factors; such as adding Schema data, optimising for mobile devices as best we can, added a blog and began to blog original content, utilise and expand our social media reach, custom 404 pages, removed duplicate content, utilised Moz and much more. It's been a fairly exhaustive process but we were happy to do so to be within Google guidelines. Unfortunately, some of those link-wheel pages mentioned previously were the only pages driving organic traffic, so once we were rid of these traffic has dropped to not even 10% of what it was previously. Equally with the changes (htaccess) to the link structure and the creation of brand new pages, we've lost many of the pages that previously held Page Authority.
We've 301'ed those pages that have been 'replaced' with much better content and a different URL structure - http://www.superted.com/profiles.php/bands-musicians/wedding-bands to simply http://www.superted.com/profiles.php/wedding-bands, for example. Therefore, with the loss of the 'spammy' pages and the creation of brand new 'content-driven' pages, we've probably lost up to 75% of the old website, including those that were driving any traffic at all (even with potential thin-content algorithmic penalties). Because of the loss of entire pages, the changes of URLs and the rest discussed above, it's likely the site looks very new and probably very updated in a short period of time. What I need to work out is a campaign to drive traffic to the 'new' site.
We're naturally building links through our own customerbase, so they will likely be seen as quality, natural link-building.
Perhaps the sudden occurrence of a large amount of 404's and 'lost' pages are affecting us?
Perhaps we're yet to really be indexed properly, but it has been almost a month since most of the changes are made and we'd often be re-indexed 3 or 4 times a week previous to the changes.
Our events page is the only one without the new design left to update, could this be affecting us? It potentially may look like two sites in one.
Perhaps we need to wait until the next Google 'link' update to feel the benefits of our link audit.
Perhaps simply getting rid of many of the 'spammy' links has done us no favours - I should point out we've never been issued with a manual penalty. Was I perhaps too hasty in following the rules? Would appreciate some professional opinion or from anyone who may have experience with a similar process before. It does seem fairly odd that following guidelines and general white-hat SEO advice could cripple a domain, especially one with age (10 years+ the domain has been established) and relatively good domain authority within the industry. Many, many thanks in advance. Ryan.0 -
Site that's 301 redirected is ranking for brand
We own a number of foreign TLD domains for our brand. They are all 301-redirected to our main .com branded domain. One of them is appearing in our branded search results, outranking out main .com page. To be clear, this is despite there being a 301 redirect from it to the .com page. Any ideas on what is going on here?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ipancake0 -
Is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic
For obvious reasons, we have submitted our clients to high authority directories such as Yahoo! Directory and Business.com. However, with all of the algorithm updates lately, we've tried to cut back on the paid directories that we submit our clients to. Having said that, my question is, is Yahoo! Directory still a beneficial SEO tactic? Or are paid directories, with the exception of BBB.com, a bad SEO tactic?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MountainMedia0 -
Search query for SEO Brisbane
Would love to get some opinions on the latest Penguin 2.0 update and how on earth the #1 rank is #1 ranked, very, very peculiar... http://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=14&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=sila&cp=8&gs_id=10&xhr=t&q=seo+brisbane&pf=p&client=safari&rls=en&sclient=psy-ab&oq=seo+bris&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47008514,d.aGc&biw=1300&bih=569 Any and all theories welcomed and appreciated. Thanks, Mike
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MichaelYork0 -
Redesigning my site, and not sure what is best for seo, subfolders or direct .html links?
,I have 4 examples to choose from, what is best:? http://hoodamath.com/games/dublox/index.html http://hoodamath.com/games/dublox.html http://hoodamath.com/dublox/index.html http://hoodamath.com/dublox.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | hoodamath0 -
SEO problems with PR Newswires
Just been investigating PR newswires for the first time (despite having worked in PR for over a decade!) One of my clients has asked my to send out a news release via a newswire of my choice. I will not be posting the news release on my client's website, to avoid the most obvious duplication issue. Has anyone had SEO probs from newswires though? I just saw one which offered: "Minimum guaranteed number of media websites on which your release is posted" alarm bells!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | McTaggart0