Unexpected ranking
-
We recently built a page for a client which consisted of a one paragraph of about 30-40 words, We weren't expecting this to rank, but it has ranked at #3 on UK Google.
So, we are now trying to work out the likely reason for this, as pages which we have optimised do not rank this well.
We realise there are a number of factors which influence ranking, but on this particular page we have a news module at the bottom of the page containing 8 short intros to other related content.
Could it be that search engines are ranking for the main content shown by the menu link and the 8 short intros associated with that main content?
Hope that makes sense.
Thanks
Ian
-
I don't think there is a definitive answer there, but my gut would be that those links out to relevant content are helping the credibility/quality consideration of your page and that they may be helping time on site and user engagement data as I mentioned before.
What you might want to do is test adding that similar feature to a couple of other pages and monitor ranking impact!
Best,
Ricky
-
Thanks Ricky,
Good observations - particularly about the modules keeping people on the page longer, never considered that.
The page speed issue is a problem at the moment. JCH optimise seems to crash the site. We will have to get to the bottom of it soon.
So you don't think Google is taking into consideration the content of related modules?
Ian
-
Hi Ian,
Unfortunately, no one call tell you exactly why you're seeing so much success with that page for that term, but we can give our best guesses based on what we do understand about Google's algorithm.
Some contributing factors from what I can tell...
- You have clear on-page targeting (title, heading, url) related to the exact keyword in question that seems to be lacking (fully) on other pages showing up on page one.
- Your domain authority is on-par with other pages ranking toward the top of page 1 for that term (26).
- Your page has a very large number of internal links point to it (396) vs other pages showing up on page 1.
- The fact that this topic is mentioned in several places through your site may be helping (http://www.laughology.co.uk/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/inset-days)
- User behavior/experience seems to be good (the fact that you have all of these other resources linked may be contributing to longer time on site, high user satisfaction etc...signals we BELIEVE Google is using to some degree).
One thing I also checked was site speed...to my surprise your page speeds were VERY low..so you're winning despite that at this point. I wanted to point that out though because it could be something that helps improve performance of other pages for other terms!
-
Hi Ria.
This is the page, we have used the term in link and H1 , but not overly optimised the page content.
But I am more interested in whether search engines are taking into account everything that is seen on screen along with the main content.
If they do, then should I be giving more consideration to the content of the modules that display with the main content, to influence page rank?
http://www.laughology.co.uk/teacher-workshop-s-inset-days/inset-days
Term: inset days workshops
-
Could be anything really... Maybe the page which is supposed to rank for that query (but was previously ranking poorly in comparison) is over-optimised, so Google prefers the new page created. Google will also be crawling the supplementary content on the page, such as the modules and menus you mentioned, though this should have less weight than the main content itself.
But as Ricky said, without knowing the page and keyword, it's hard to say. There might be something really obvious.
-
Could you share the page and the keyword you're ranking for? Pretty impossible answer without that info..thanks!
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
-
Domain authority decreased but rankings increased
Hello! I'm a bit confused. It seems the industry as a whole that my company operates in has taken a bash from the update a few days ago as all of the competitiors have taken a hit to their domain authority. What is confusing is that my websites rankings have increased as well. There has been a change to the robots.txt file in an effort to stop being crawled by SEMRush which is messing with my site stats but that is the only change. Thanks in advance, Ben
On-Page Optimization | | Ben-Cleaver1 -
Strange ranking occurrences in Google (NL)
Mozzers, I got a question for all of you. Recently (about 3 months ago) I launched a renewed website for a costumer of mine. Since then rankings have been improving and some decreasing a little but overall it went quite allright. _Still, we now have some issues with some new pages and I really don't know what to do any more. _ The Case:
On-Page Optimization | | JarnoNijzing
For starters lets say the company sells vacuum cleaners. We now make pages for specific product ranges e.g. Miele Diamond vacuum cleaners which in turn tells something about this product range and has links to different pages of that series, for instance the Miele Black Diamond Silent Vacuum Cleaner. Why did we do this? We already ranked for specific product pages but also wanted to rank for more general terms and thus product ranges. What happened? We now rank perfectly well for the product pages itself but for some reason the Miele Diamond Vacuum Cleaners page doesn't rank at all or not as it should. Why is this strange? Because we applied the exact same tactic for some other product ranges on the same website and it worked like a charm (part of the reason why we started to do this for all product-ranges). I could really use some help here. If you want I can message you the pagelink in PM but I won't post it here for several reasons. The Vacuum Cleaners in this example or not the real products though but used as an exemplar. I really do hope to hear from you with some advice or request for more information. Regards
Jarno0 -
Sudden drop in ranking for important keyword? No penalty / other issues detected
Hi For our site we previously ranked well for the term "botswana safari holidays" on the page: http://www.naturalworldsafaris.com/destinations/africa-and-the-indian-ocean/botswana.aspx We've suddenly seen a dramatic drop for this term, currently ranked #43 on Google UK. There are no penalty notices in Webmaster tools and the only edits to the page recently have been to include the term "Botswana safari holidays" in the page title and the on-page h2 (previously Botswana safaris and holidays). Any suggestions why we have seen a large decrease for this term? We expect to see some fluctuation but this one seems a bit dramatic. We've not lost any backlinks to the page that we know of. Thanks for the help.
On-Page Optimization | | KateWaite0 -
Which page to rank for a Keyword? Home Page or Deep Page?
So, we have a situation where there is one particular keyword we want to rank for. We have been up and down over the years, at our best probably position 4-5, and now at 20ish. Thats for our home page of course, which the majority of our linking is probably pointing at. We also have a sub page which is optimised for that particular service. The term is "web design brisbane".
On-Page Optimization | | MauriceKintek
So as you can imagine, Web Design is in itself a service and we offer others. Should we optimise our home page for it and remove the sub page?
Keep the sub page because its one our services and optimise both?
Do some kind of canonical thing?
Change our interlinking? All our competitors home pages seem to be the ones that rank, and it feels and looks better in results if its the home page, but if switching up to our sub page is better im all ears. Also if our sub page is somehow hurting or leaking SEO from the home page, id like to know as well. Would prefer to not have to provide a link, due to competition but if someone wants to know we can always PM.0 -
Sudden Site Rankings Drop
Good day guys, We have been following strict SEO strategies for the past 6 months, all sites have been improving incredibly well, all except one. The site in question is http://bit.ly/IH4pkM . The site is regarding automotive spray booth equipment. We were ranking on the first page for the keyword "spray booth" (which is the most important one), at place #4 for weeks on end. However since half-way last week, the site has been dropped to half-way the second page (#17). There are barely any crawler errors listed for our campaign on SEOMoz. There were several pages of which the meta description was missing, but that has been fixed earlier this week. When it comes to link building, I looked at what the top competitors were doing, and was looking for unique link building opportunities myself. We have received 0 webmaster tools warnings as well. I do not believe we are penalized due to the "penguin" update. After all, if you search for for the company's name in Google, it is still listed on there (# 2). Nor have we been part of dodgy link networks at all. So my question is, what do you guys believe made us drop the rankings? Is there some on-page issues I am overlooking? Any recommendations to restore out previous rankings? Kind Regards, Roderic
On-Page Optimization | | Michael-Goode0 -
301 Redirect to mobile site effecting rankings
On my site I redirect users when on a mobile device to be redirected to my mobile version of my site. In the last couple weeks I added that redirect in my htaccess file. I just realized today that I am doing a 301 redirect. In the last few weeks my ranking have gotten lower. I am starting to think that because of the redirect my mobile site is not as optimized as my regular site and therefor is effecting my rankings. My question is how can I redirect my users to my mobile site but not use a 301 AND how do I get google to use my main site content for ranking on the mobile side. I want to go back to getting my search rankings on the mobile side using my main sites content. Can I simply remove the 301 on the redirect? Hope that makes sense.
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
Meta Description Tags and Rankings
Hi there, I have a lot of pages set up on my site but most have no content. If I add the correct meta description tags to those pages, will that help rank for the root domain? I am slowly getting the content added for each page but wanted to see if I could boost rankings in the meantime. http://www.petmedicalcenter.com Example: most of pages under "Services" are blank. Thanks for the help!
On-Page Optimization | | PMC-3120870 -
Rankings lower than expected
It's an age old question, "why is my site lower in the ranking than theirs" But in this case, I'm really not sure!... and we perform the SEO on both sites in question. The problem site is www.esp-machinery.co.uk We are looking for ranking for phrases such as Used Machine Tools, Grinding Machines, Drilling Machines, Used Lathes etc. We aren't getting it as high as we have already with another customer of ours: www.bwmachinetools.co.uk We perform the SEO on both these sites, yet we've put far more work into the ESP one, and still not getting very far. There are more linking domains to ESP than BW, in truth the BW site has a higher mozrank, but by only a single point. We did not build the ESP site, whereas we built the BW one. There have been some URL problems with the ESP site, but we have hopefully improved things enough working with their original developer to be on the right track now. Any advice most welcome.
On-Page Optimization | | rowleysit-2598920
