Why some websites can rank the keywords they don't have in the page?
-
Hello guys,
Yesterday, I used SEMrush to search for the keyword "branding agency" to see the SERP. The Liquidagency ranks 5th on the first page. So I went to their homepage but saw no exact keywords "branding agency", even in the page source. Also, I didn't see "branding agency" as a top anchor text in the external links to the page (from the report of SEMrush).
I am an SEO newbie, can someone explain this to me, please? Thank you.
-
Also who is the guy lol name them if you suspect wrongdoing or unethical behaviors! I know of at least one page 1 ranking site around my locality that ended up converting a student organization domain with a lot of .edu backlinks and then just ran with it for seo and represented itself in multiple irrelevant and across the country large cities.
They even blatantly dared to SELL backlinks on their site... in broad daylight! in 2016! Needless to say I reported them to Google and saw them get kicked down a notch to page 2 for my test keywords from earlier searches.
-
Thank you!
-
Could be a lot of factors at play here such as the age of the domain, the inbound links it receives etc.
Check the Moz stats for it - page authority, domain authority etc.
-
Thank you, Sean. That is really helpful.
But why this guy ranks better than his competitors even though competitors are targeting exact keyword "branding agency". What are the reasons behind it?
Thank you,
Raymond
-
Hi there,
Historically in SEO, search engines used to use the 'exact match' text of a page (be that in the page title, URL, page copy, H1 etc.) to inform the term to rank the page for.
Nowadays, Google is a lot more understanding of related terms and synonyms since the 'Hummingbird' update. For example, if I optimised my entire site for 'advertising agency', there's a good chance that Google will understand that 'branding' is likely to come under my field of expertise and rank me for searches such as 'branding agency' or similar.
Their optimisation for the term 'branding agency' might not just be down to the homepage - the likelihood is that they have a page on the site explaining their branding services which helps the overall domain rank for that kind of term.
I hope this helps,
Sean
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
-
All urls seem to exist (no 404 errors) but they don't.
Hello I am doing a SEO auditing for a website which only has a few pages. I have no cPanel credentials, no FTP no Wordpress admin account, just watching it from the outside. The site works, the Moz crawler didn't report any problem, I can reach every page from the menu. The problem is that - except for the few actual pages - no matter what you type after the domain name, you always reach the home page and don't get any 404 error. I.E. Http://domain.com/oiuxyxyzbpoyob/ (there is no such a page, but i don't get 404 error, the home is displayed and the url in the browser remains Http://domain.com/oiubpoyob/, so it's not a 301 redirect). Http://domain.com/WhatEverYouType/ (same) Could this be an important SEO issue (i.e. resulting in infinite amount of duplicate content pages )? Do you think I should require the owner to prevent this from happening? Should I look into the .htaccess file to fix it ? Thank you Mozers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoMiSoL0 -
Can noindexed pages accrue page authority?
My company's site has a large set of pages (tens of thousands) that have very thin or no content. They typically target a single low-competition keyword (and typically rank very well), but the pages have a very high bounce rate and are definitely hurting our domain's overall rankings via Panda (quality ranking). I'm planning on recommending we noindexed these pages temporarily, and reindex each page as resources are able to fill in content. My question is whether an individual page will be able to accrue any page authority for that target term while noindexed. We DO want to rank for all those terms, just not until we have the content to back it up. However, we're in a pretty competitive space up against domains that have been around a lot longer and have higher domain authorities. Like I said, these pages rank well right now, even with thin content. The worry is if we noindex them while we slowly build out content, will our competitors get the edge on those terms (with their subpar but continually available content)? Do you think Google will give us any credit for having had the page all along, just not always indexed?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | THandorf0 -
Website URL Structure - keyword targeting on homepage vs internal pages
I have developed a few websites before where the homepage contains the content for the keywords I was targeting. This has been reasonably successful as I have found it easy enough to get links to the homepage. I am considering a new site in a totally different industry that I am thinking about structuring like this: mybrand.com (not necessarily targeting any keywords) mybrand.com/important-keyword-1/ (definitely want to target) mybrand.com/important-keyword-2 (equally important as 1st keyword) There will be several (30-ish) other pages targeting keywords but they are not as significant as the two mentioned above, more so they are about publishing informative information. The two important keywords are quite different but industry related. My questions are: should I be careful targeting keywords away from the homepage when the homepage gets the most links? Would I be better off building 2 different websites where the keyword content is captured in the homepage? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BGu0 -
Weird Page switch for a keyword in Google Rankings
Over this past weekend Google switched the page which usually showed in search results for keyword benchmarking. It went from from http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking to http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking-portal/osb. Also on Google the Rankings for the keyword 'benchmarking' sank from 15 to 47 for http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking Just looking for some theories or ideas or anyone that has had this happen to them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseninja0 -
Can internal links from a blog harm the ranking of a page?
Here is the situation: A site was moved from its original domain to its new domain, and at the same time, the external wordpress.com blog was moved to a subdirectory, making it an onsite blog. The two pages that rank the highest on the site have virtually no links from the blog and no external links, while all the other pages are linked extensively from the blog and have backlinks. Their targeted keywords are not so much easier to rank than the other pages for that to be the sole cause. To confuse the matter even more, there was a manual penalty affecting incoming links which was removed last month. The old site, which has many backlinks to the new site, is still in Google's index. The old blog however, has been redirected page by page and is not in Google's index. Most of the blog posts are short 1-paragraph company updates and potentially considered low quality content because of that (?) The common denominator among the two highest ranked pages (I'm talking top 3 in SERP v. page 3 or 4) seems to be either the lack of external backlinks or the lack of internal links from the blog. Could there be an issue with the blog such that internal links from it are detrimental rather than helpful?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kimmiedawn0 -
SEOMoz Keyword Ranking Accuracy
Getting some mixed message on this. Is the keyword ranking informational available in SEOMoz based on the data in Mozscape or based on live Google data? Reason I ask is that my ranking for "crown moulding" for www.worldofmoulding differs: Based on the today's scan my www.worldofmoulding.com ranks in position 40 in Google. Based on a manual check with cleared out cache no local setting ... the site is 4th spot Running a third party check using "Advanced Web Ranking" tool it comes up in 9th spot, but they count the local business SERPs in which case it matches my manual search. It seems that SEOMoz is not in line with actual ranking. Any suggestion for what can be used to accurately asses SERP placement for terms?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Why is google ranking me higher for pages that aren't optimised for keywords those that are?
I am finding that our homepage and other pages are being ranked higher against keywords that we have optimised other pages for. e.g Keyword: Luxury Towels Google Ranks our homepage http://www.towelsrus.co.uk at 20 for this and the page I am trying to rank for it is nowhere to be seen http://www.towelsrus.co.uk/sport-spa/luxury-towels/catlist_fnct498.htm Why is this and is this why our position for certain keywords fluctuates? How do I remedy this problem?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Towelsrus0 -
Ranking For Misspelling of Primary Keyword
I have been baffled for the past few months for ranking for the misspelling of our primary keyword BELIZE in the Google U.S. Serps. We are nowhere to be found, but are ranking for the misspelling BELIZ (without the final "e"). We have been online since 1995 on page one everywhere. 11 months ago we did a site redesign changing over to WP as a CMS. We changed all pages from widget-example.html to widget-example and properly 301ed all pages after deleting the old pages. Then we accidentally de-indexed the site for a month due to a robots.txt error. This has been corrected 4 months now. We shared this on the Google Webmaster forums and some kind folks helped with advice - nothing major in our opinion but we implemented most of the tips given. We are doing fine everywhere with all search engines and Google itself in other areas Google.ca Google.bz Google.mx for example. But in our primary market is the U.S. where the majority of our readers are - tourists and retirees looking for our information - we do not exist. The joke is that searching for BELIZ in the U.S. Google Serps has us on Page One. It is a joke that is NOT funny - or maybe some human evaluator made a mistake or is playing a sick joke? We have done a reconsideration request in case there was a manual penalty and we received the no manual penalty form letter. I notice increasingly in Google Live Analytics people typing in our full domain name - I guess out of frustration not getting the site when inputting the primary keyword. I find that I can write a new article and in a couple of weeks it ranks in the top couple pages. Many other pages are found via long-tail only. I find it intriguing that yesterday I wrote a very small article, a press release actually, and today searching for the misspelling BELIZ in the U.S. Google Serp the root domain is ranked #2 and the snippet and image displayed is from this little article which is nothing really great. I am new here. Thanks to anyone who can help. The site: Belize http://www.belize.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Belize0