My DA keeps going up, by my rankings keep falling.
-
Hi,
I manage a few clients, but the one that is in reference to this question is a local law firm. They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks. Their domain authority keeps rising, but they continue to lose rankings for tracked keywords. Has anyone else faced a similar situation? Does anyone one know what is causing this or what I can do to combat it?
Thanks,
-
While I do often look at Domain Authority, I see a LOT of cases where DA doesn't tell the whole story. DA is Moz's best replication of PageRank. But, because no one outside of Google knows how they calculate PageRank, it's not always going to be equivalent.
There are a lot more things that could be done for this site, especially in terms of on-page SEO. The home page title tag is "Home | Brand" It's quite important to have some keywords in the title tag. Similarly, take a look at the above the fold content of the home page. I see an image (logo), followed by some navigational buttons and then the most important text on the page says:
Real Experience. Practical Solutions.
When Decisions Matter.Below that are a few buttons that do actually contain some keywords.
My point is that there is very little on your home page that gives Google the context of what you want this site to rank for. I am betting that changing the title tag and writing some above the fold text that concisely explains what the firm offers and also contains a few keywords would make a difference.
Those were just a few things I saw on a quick look. It might be worthwhile to do a thorough site quality audit as a next move. On-site changes can really help move the needle.
-
They have some "category" type pages on their website, such as this one about "family law".
http://www.stockandleader.com/personal-law/family-law
This page only has a yada yada yada paragraphy on it.
These pages would become much stronger in the SERPs for industry category keywords, and a useful starting point for visitors, if all of the blog posts for that legal category were linked to from these pages. These types of pages can serve as gateways to the expertise areas of the firm if they link to all of their related content.
-
Here is the link to the blog: http://www.stockandleader.com/blog.
Actually, we have been advising that they try to write using language that could be understood by people outside of the legal industry - as this is their main target.
I don't think other law firms would ever link to their blog, as lawyers are super competitive and do not want to send users to a different law firm, even if it was 1000 miles away. I used Open Site Explorer to see what links their competitor has, and they have very similar links - local newspapers, magazines, sponsorships, directories. The one core difference that I saw was that their competition was linked as being "local" law firm in completely different states. For example, they are based in PA, but were being linked to as a local law firm in a directory for VT and MN law firms. They are not a national law firm, so this should not be happening.
-
That is quite a bit of blogging. They should have a couple hundred blog posts at that rate. Are these blog posts of high enough quality to attract links from other law firms, law schools, legal sites, etc.? If not, then I would suggest posting less often and with higher qualilty.
-
They have been blogging for years, often 3 - 4 times a month. There have not been many negative backlinks. I just added that information so that you would know that there are not any bad backlinks.
-
Here is some information that might be helpful to those trying to respond....
**They blog on a regular basis... **
How long have they been doing this and what is the rate? If they have been making one post per month for four months, that isn't enough to move the needle. Also, are the posts yada yada yada content or are the good juicy legal stuff that citizens, other law firms or law schools will link to?
we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks.
Where are these coming from? How do you know they are negative and not simple spam?
-
"They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks" - That would be your issue no doubt. Robgerbot is cleaver but he can't see what links you've disavowed. I've seen a lot of people deleted what they think is bad links but in fact had no problem at all. This means Moz and alike can see them however Google doesn't and thus doesn't discount.
Hope that helps.
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
-
Is adding video to my homepage a ranking signal
Just had a lengthy chat with an SEO guy and one of the points bought up was that video on the homepage is a definite signal these days and the bots read the metas better than ever. I'm not sure about this, I do think that videos are a thing that improves the user experience but to rank? If it was to rank would I embed a YouTube video as its owned by Google, Vimeo for the quality or self-host but cause me to have a heavy page. I'm a bit lost here and would appreciate some guidance.
On-Page Optimization | | Libra_Photographic1 -
How to change images of a page without loosing ranking?
Hi, I have two reasons to change some images of a page on a wordpress site: 1.Google speed service advise me to optmize the images size to better spead load times. 2.I want to change images titles (to improve seo optimization for the page keyword), so i need to replace them, since im using wordpress. Now the question is: Can i just change the images without worring about any related seo issues? Or should i follow some best practice to change images in order to not affect the ranking of the page? tx for your support!
On-Page Optimization | | Dreamrealemedia0 -
When do Panda ranking factors apply when Google deindexes a page
Here is 2 scenarios Scenario 1 Lets say I have a site with a ton of pages (100,000+) that all have off site duplicate content. And lets say that those pages do not contain any rel="noindex" tags on them. Google then decides to de-index all those pages because of the duplicate content issue and slaps me with a Panda penalty. Since all those pages are no longer indexed by Google does the Panda Penalty still apply even though all those pages have been deindexed? Scenario 2 I add a rel="noindex" to all those 100,000+ off site duplicate content pages. Since Google sees that I have decided to not index them does the Panda penalty come off? What I am getting at is that I have realized that I have a ton of pages with off site duplicate content, even though those pages are already not indexed by Google does me by simply adding the rel="noindex" tag to them tell Google that I am trying to get rid of duplicate content and they lift the Panda penalty? The pages are useful to my users so I need them to stay. Since in both scenarios the pages are not indexed anyways, will Google acknowledge the difference in that I am removing them myself and lift the panda ban? Hope this makes sense
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
How do you find out all the keywords Google is ranking you for?
Hello, Is there anyway of finding out all the keywords that Google is currently ranking our website for so that we can then build on those keyword positions? Many thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | mblsolutions0 -
Page rank question
Hi all, pretty standard SEO question that I'm sure you are all getting asked day in, day out... the following page: http://www.3wisemonkeys.co.uk/dvd/portable-dvd-player-car/ It's targetting keywords "portable dvd", "portable DVD player", "portable DVD players" & "portable dvd player for car". The page gets a grade A via Moz analytics On-page grader for the keywords. We have incoming links and I believe the page is structured correctly with all meta tags, H1 etc and tried not too overload the tags with keywords. We have the keywords in the URL etc. We are still stuck on page 2 for all phrases. Any thoughts or suggestions as to what we are doing wrong please? Any help would be great.
On-Page Optimization | | jasef0 -
Error is not going away and crawling
I have fixed an error but its still showing in red as error. Im totally new to SeoMoz and to SEO in general so im not sure how this tool works. Did I fix it correctly or not if its still showing? It was a broken link and now it links up to another page. Do I just have to wait? My website only has 8 pages and on the dashboard it says crawled 8 pages but it takes up to a week for a full crawl? Im really confused. Thank you in advanced!
On-Page Optimization | | Pixeltistic0 -
What Next LOL? Dont know where to go from here
Hi, still new to SEO MOZ. So some of my keywords are showing my site went up the search engines and others went down. So what next? Theres no suggestions, so not quite sure why some pages went up, others down, or where to go from here. Thanks! lee
On-Page Optimization | | nexgraphics0 -
Ranking on page 5 for a 1% difficulty keyword
Hello mozers, I am going crazy over this. I have designed a new site www.smh.cz. The company name / kw is unique (Smolikova Mikulas Hendrich), but it appears on page 5 on Google.
On-Page Optimization | | ilincev
Yahoo and Bing is fine (in top 3 positions). All the on-page factors are ok too.
All the smh.cz pages are indexed on Google. We have done a 301 redirect of two other domains (sm-legal.cz and smm-partners.cz) which were websites for the firms prior to forming a new one. I am scratching my head over what does Google dislike so much. Any thoughts? Can the smh.cz domain - which previously had some dodgy insurance content - be the reason? Your help is much appreciated. Ondrej0