Weird behavior with site's rankings
-
I have a problem with my site's rankings.
I rank for higher difficulty (but lower search volume) keywords , but my site gets pushed back for lower difficulty, higher volume keywords, which literally pisses me off.I thought very seriously to start new with a new domain name, cause what ever i do seems that is not working.
I will admit that in past (2-3 years ago) i used some of those "seo packages" i had found, but those links which were like no more than 50, are all deleted now, and the domains are disavowed.
The only thing i can think of, is that some how my site got flagged as suspicious or something like that in google.Like 1 month ago, i wrote an article about a topic related with my niche, around a keyword that has difficulty 41%. The search term in 1st page has high authority domains, including a wikipedia page, and i currently rank in the 3rd place.
In the other had, i would expect to rank easily for a keyword difficulty of 30-35% but is happening the exact opposite.The pages i try to rank, are not spammy, are checked with moz tools, and also with canirank spam filters. All is good and green. Plus the content of those pages i try to rank have a Content Relevancy Score which varies from 98% to 100%...
Your opinion would be very helpful, thank you.
-
Hi Nikos,
It's important to remember that Keyword Difficulty scores are a Moz metric, not a Google metric - they are based on Moz' ability to judge how well other sites are competing for that term, and may not capture the entire competitive landscape (since nobody except Google knows everything that Google looks at).
Based on your ability to rank well for some terms and not others, it doesn't seem likely to me that you are under any sort of penalty, so much as that Google just isn't ranking you for some terms. In addition to the Keyword Difficulty scores for each term, take a look at which sites rank for the term (you can do this in the SERP Analysis feature of the Keyword Difficulty tool. Ask youself:
- What kinds of sites rank for this term? For example, if you are an individual business, but all of the sites and pages that are ranking for that term are aggregators or lists of multiple sites, it may be that Google has determined that an individual business site is not a good fit for that query. Similarly, if your page is a blog post and no other blog posts appear in the SERP, Google may have decided that a blog post isn't what people are looking for when they search that term.
- What is the search intent of the query? Based on the other pages that rank, what is the question or task that Google has decided users are trying to answer or complete when they search this term? Does your page do a better example of helping answer that question or complete that task than the other pages that rank?
- What types of content are ranking? Do they all have rich snippets? Are there images, video, shopping or maps results? All of these will tell you more about the kind of content Google thinks will match this query.
- Is there a specific page or website that is ranking for that term that you think you could push out of the top 10? Look for areas of opportunity. For example, maybe there is a site with high authority, but the page that ranks has very low page authority and doesn't fit the query very well. Try to create a page that is better than that page, specifically.
- How closely is the phrase related to your niche? You can tell from the keywords you are successfully ranking for, which topic areas Google is associating with your site. If you have a whole site about chocolates, it will be harder to rank a page about asparagus, even if the difficulty score is lower.
Also, don't forget to continue promoting your content to earn high-authority links to individual content pieces. Where it makes sense to do so, you may also want to link internally from some of your more popular and successful pages to some of the pages that are struggling.
I hope that helps!
-
Hi!
I have the same question as before
If someone has an idea, i would love to hear it -
Hi Nikos! Did EGOL answer your question? If so, please mark his response as a "Good Answer." If not, what questions do you still have?
-
Thanks for your answer.
User experience was one of my first concerns. So i purchased a bootstrap theme, which actually looks very good and is very user friendly. You can check it here. The pages i try to rank for, looks very similar to that one.
Time on site and Bounch rate
Average Bounch rate is 60% , and average time on page is 4 minutes, and 10 seconds (average last month metrics). My site is actually a review site if that helps you somehow.I receive often link requests from other webmasters (meaning other people think my site looks, and content is good), so overal, i don't think my site deserving those rankings. Unless some "old sins" are chasing me.
-
my site gets pushed back for lower difficulty, higher volume keywords, which literally pisses me off.
We often focus too much on competitive metrics and not enough about the presentation that we are making to our visitors. Many search professionals believe that google is looking at the behavior of visitors, how long they stay, how far they scroll, the number who click in, do they bookmark, do they share your site with friends... and more important... Are They Asking for You By Name in navigational and domain queries?
This is much of the "machine learning" that Google has patented and what they say they are using in some of their new algorithms. I've believe that this has been important for a long time and was willing to stick my neck out about it and bet my ranch a long time ago.
lower difficulty, higher volume keywords
The numbers you are looking at are not based upon what visitors think of your site and how they behave, they are based upon completely different things. I don't think that Moz or others who publish keyword difficulty estimations have very good abilities for determining how visitors behave. Google is the one who has that data, both from the SERPs and from Chrome, and from the engagement platforms like bookmarks and + and other things that they either control or can count.
Keyword difficulty is a brute force metric. Visitor satisfaction is much more discerning and very hard to measure.
which literally pisses me off.
How do your visitors feel when they try to use your website? Compare your site to the sites at the top of the SERPs. Do they have better content? Do they give a better visitor experience? Do they have a broader menu? Is their design better for navigation, comfort of reading, scanning, sharing, and all of the things that people want to do on a website. How do visitors feel when they click in.
Lots of people believe that it is really easy to earn good metrics. Really easy. But it is harder than Hell to please your visitor. How are you doing there? Take a look at be honest.
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
-
Google Indexed Site A's Content On Site B, Site C etc
Hi All, I have an issue where the content (pages and images) of Site A (www.ericreynolds.photography) are showing up in Google under different domains Site B (www.fastphonerepair.com), Site C (www.quarryhillvet.com), Site D (www.spacasey.com). I believe this happened because I installed an SSL cert on Site A but didn't have the default SSL domain set on the server. You were able to access Site B and any page from Site A and it would pull up properly. I have since fixed that SSL issue and am now doing a 301 redirect from Sites B, C and D to Site A for anything https since Sites B, C, D are not using an SSL cert. My question is, how can I trigger google to re-index all of the sites to remove the wrong listings in the index. I have a screen shot attached so you can see the issue clearer. I have resubmitted my site map but I'm not seeing much of a change in the index for my site. Any help on what I could do would be great. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cwscontent
Eric TeVM49b.png qPtXvME.png1 -
Magento: Should we disable old URL's or delete the page altogether
Our developer tells us that we have a lot of 404 pages that are being included in our sitemap and the reason for this is because we have put 301 redirects on the old pages to new pages. We're using Magento and our current process is to simply disable, which then makes it a a 404. We then redirect this page using a 301 redirect to a new relevant page. The reason for redirecting these pages is because the old pages are still being indexed in Google. I understand 404 pages will eventually drop out of Google's index, but was wondering if we were somehow preventing them dropping out of the index by redirecting the URL's, causing the 404 pages to be added to the sitemap. My questions are: 1. Could we simply delete the entire unwanted page, so that it returns a 404 and drops out of Google's index altogether? 2. Because the 404 pages are in the sitemap, does this mean they will continue to be indexed by Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | andyheath0 -
Getting into Google News, URL's & Sitemaps
Hello, I know that one of the 'technical requirements' to get into google news is that the URL's have unique numbers at the end, BUT, that requirement can be circumvented if you have a Google News Sitemap. I've purchased the Yoast Google News Sitemap (https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/news-seo/) BUT just found out that you cannot submit a google news Sitemap until you are accepted into google news. Thus, my question is that do you need to add the digits to the URL's temporarily until you get in and can submit a google news sitemap, OR, is it ok to apply without them and take care of the sitemap after you get in. If anyone has any other tips about getting into Google News that would be great! Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stacksnew0 -
How do I get my site to rank in the right country?
I work with an organization in the United States that purchased a 3 letter .com domain from another company based in the Netherlands. After transferring the domain and setting up the new site we've completed the following: Registered the site in Webmaster Tools and selected the United States as the international target target Used Schema Markup on the US business address Built links from US based websites Setup a Google My Business site and verified the address All site content is in english Requested removal of links from sites in the Netherlands that were linking to the old website Disavowed all links from the Netherlands that refused to remove links to the old website Despite these actions, our website rarely shows up in Google.com search results. However, we're in the top 10 for many of the same queries when performing searches at Google.nl - Interestingly enough, if we set our location for the US and do a search in Google.nl we do not show up in the search results.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianspatterson
It has been about 18 months since we've completed these actions and Google still assumes our website is best served and targeted towards people in the Netherlands. Is there anything else we can do to fix this?Thanks!0 -
What NAP format do I use if the USPS can't even find my client's address?
My client has a site already listed on Google+Local under "5208 N 1st St". He has some other NAPs, e.g., YellowPages, under "5208 N First Street". The USPS finds neither of these, nor any variation that I can possibly think of! Which is better? Do I just take the one that Google has accepted and make all the others like it as best I can? And doesn't it matter that the USPS doesn't even recognize the thing? Or no? Local SEO wizards, thanks in advance for your guidance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayvensoft0 -
Should I 'nofollow' links between my own sites?
We have five sites which are largely unrelated but for cross-promotional purpose our company wishes to cross link between all our sites, possibly in the footer. I have warned about potential consequences of cross-linking in this way and certainly don't want our sites to be viewed as some sort of 'link ring' if they all link to one another. Just wondering if linking between sites you own really is that much of an issue and whether we should 'nofollow' the links in order to prevent being slapped with any sort of penalty for cross-linking.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | simon_realbuzz0 -
Should I use both Google and Bing's Webmaster Tools at the same time?
Hi All, Up till now I've been registered only to Google WMT. Do you recommend using at the same time Bing's WMT? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Tool to calculate the number of pages in Google's index?
When working with a very large site, are there any tools that will help you calculate the number of links in the Google index? I know you can use site:www.domain.com to see all the links indexed for a particular url. But what if you want to see the number of pages indexed for 100 different subdirectories (i.e. www.domain.com/a, www.domain.com/b)? is there a tool to help automate the process of finding the number of pages from each subdirectory in Google's index?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0