Keyword difficulty tool - bit confused here!!
-
Hi,
Got a question about the keyword difficulty tool, I'm new to seomoz so might be a silly question but here goes.
Q: It takes the top 10 results from Google under a certain search query, the results displayed gives a rough breakdown of what power the page on the search results has along with the root domain.
It looks like it rewards the best out of the bunch for each section with a tick, so 1 tick per column for the best performer.
Now I would have thought if one of the websites in the top 10 had all 4 ticks it would rank at the top of the list but this is not the case.
What else would come into play to make others which have no ticks rank higher then one which has all.
Sorry if this sounds really confusing.
-
Overwhelming link strength.
-
The Keyword Difficulty tool looks at results what whatever search query you specify, but the metrics it uses to score those top 10 sites look mostly at the link metrics of the mentioned domains. Really since those results are relative to search query you entered it would be implied that those results that rank highly also probably have good on page seo metrics in place but they may not. The result that may rank 3rd might have a stronger link profile, but contextually it may be getting outranked on by other sites that also have strong profiles but have better on page metrics. Also things like domain age and other factors might influencing that. Search engines use hundreds of factors and the keyword difficulty tool reverse engineers those factors very well, but it's not perfect.
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
-
Free tools to find country of origin of backlinks/urls
Hey are there any free tools out there which can allow me to insert a large list of urls, and it determines the country of origin of the domain. I know the paid version of majestic does, but i was wondering if theres any free tools? Cheers, Chris
Competitive Research | | monster990 -
Confused about sites ranking when compared to each other
I'm looking at the keyword "snow guards" for two competitor websites: snogem dot com (SG) snoshield dot com (SS) I've been watching these two for about 4 months. SG stays in the top 5 SERPs consistently, while SS bounces around from 15-20 on Google. I've looked at the competitive link comparison and SS appears to have a much better link profile when it comes to DA. Page specific metrics in OSE show SS with a higher mozrank, moztrust, internal followed links, linking root domains, total linking root domains, and linking C Blocks. It appears to me that SG has many more links, but their links seem to be many site wide exact match keyword links, and paid for advertisements on a major site in the metal roofing industry. Honestly the linking profile of SG surprises me that they rank so much higher than SS after the Panda/Penguin updates. I have two questions: 1. When competing against these sites, should I model SG's link profile? I'm nervous to because of my previous statement thinking they will get hit with Panda/Penguin like updates. 2. What would it take to bounce SS to competing with SG on the first page? Is the number of links the only thing this site is missing, or is there something else to focus on.
Competitive Research | | kadesmith0 -
Google serps for split keyword searches
A client has come to me with an issue with the marketing of their website. it is mainly focused around the search of their name. the site is an Magento GO hosted e-commerce based site through Magento. it requires a good amount of optimisation and its in a very competitive market - which has high volume of searches. When entering the name of the business it doesn't show on the first page of Google but it does on Bing or Yahoo. The site name is lovehugz and is UK based The issue is when searched for by name lovehugz it appears on the second page, however if the search term is separated love hugz it appears first on the first page. The site is poorly optmised at present with the page title limited to the name lovehugz. Does anybody know of reasons why Google might be behaving in this manner and what steps should be taken to overcome. Optimising for the name is not the only aim here, however it something that should be in place for people searching by name, There is a lot of work to be done to optimise the site for its essential relevant keywords to stand a chance in its market. Any ideas of help would be greatly appreciated thanks
Competitive Research | | Bristolweb0 -
Your favorite/most comprehensive guide to keyword research?
what's your favorite guide to keyword research? in lieu of having a favorite, what is the most comprehensive guide you've come across?
Competitive Research | | Mozzin0 -
Keywords in URL structure for Large Site
We are creating a national real estate website which will contain 2mil+ listings. Our aim is to compete with the National leaders in the field. We are trying to lock down a url structure and it basically comes down to if we should put a major keyword in the url structure or not. The structure would have regional keywords naturally. Its the addition of a more descriptive key word which is in question. Our domain name has no keywords in it. For the sake of this example, we would be targeting "city real estate"... oursite.com/real-estate/state/city/ or oursite.com/state/city/ Here is what the big sites use as an example: http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/New-York-NY/ http://www.trulia.com/NY/New_York/ http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/New_York-New_York/ http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/New-York Id love to not have to throw keywords in there and be as clean as possible but i also dont want to shoot myself in the foot. The big boys do add additional keywords in the url, does that mean we should? Id much rather be a leader than a follower but again, I dont want to mess this up from the start and these guys have probably tested this (or have they?). Input would be greatly appreciated.
Competitive Research | | cobbsfriedman0 -
How can my site not ranked on easy keyword while it currently ranked 1 on difficult keyword??
The site in question is http://ikt.co.id The site is perfectly optimized (or even over optimized) for keyword "Bikin Website Murah" (in Indonesia it means "develop an affordable website") currently if you search on both google.co.id AND google.com, it ranked on #10 (on google.co.id) and it ranked on #7 (on google.com), and both term only return 1.3 million results I have A LOT OF pages that started with 'bikin website' , or 'website murah' ... there are a lot of them, and i have had a lot of backlinks on those pages too (have been manually building a lot of links, starting from creating a tutorial article and blog submission and many other way) .. the site has been perfectly optimized for that keyword For example we have http://ikt.co.id/blog-category/bikin-website-murah-promo-terbaru.html (for newest promotion) http://ikt.co.id/blog/bikin-website-seo-murah-discount-40-sampai-31-juli-2011.html (for discount 40% promo that lasted untill 31 juli 2011) AND YET, if you search on google.co.id for keyword "2000 likes facebook" , our lone page that i created when our facebook likes reached that amount, RANKED #1!! , and please let me tell you this term return 400 million results++ (on google.com this keyword ranked #19, on 500 million results++). And let me tell you it take that SINGLE page (which has absolutely 0 backlinks) 2 days to ranked #1 .... and her brother if you searched "1000 likes facebook" also show similar result (though not better then the sister) How ?!? and Why ?!? , i dont understand this at all.... my domain does not contain any keyword, they uses the same engine and yet that lone pages which have absolutely no backlink ranked so well on a very competitive keyword, while my Target Keyword ranked poorly.... And what is even more bizzare? "Bikin website murah" might not rank good, but "bikin website" ranked better x_x ... arghh i dont get it... why my site ranked poorly on easy keywords and ranked high on difficult keywords :(( .... Why I am not smiling because those easy keyword is actually my primary keywords 😞
Competitive Research | | IKT0 -
What does 70% Keyword Difficulty mean in reality?
I did a quick search in SEOmoz keyword difficuilty tool and found out most of the keyword I pick with some nice traffic are all 70%. Keyword list: http://screencast.com/t/Y4pPK42ZXrST How "difficult" is 70%? If someone ask you to optimize and rank a (very) new website for a keyword with 70% difficulty: Will you take the challedge or you think mission impossible? Why? How do you relate this reletively abstract "number" to the real world? Thank you!
Competitive Research | | johnzhel0 -
Ranking keyword VCA
We want to rank higher on the keyword VCA. Our direct competitor VCAnederland ranks one place higher and we want that place. If we look at some statics from the Open site explorer, we score better. PA: VCAdirect = 53 VS competitor = 46 DA: VCAdirect = 43 VS competitor = 39 Total links = VCAdirect = 8415 VS competitor = 3051 External followed links = VCAdirect = 8178 VS competitor = 1059 Linking root domains = VCAdirect = 146 VS competitor = 105 SEOmoz competitive Domain Analysis (gives other numbers) DA: VCAdirect = 44 VS competitor = 40 DMozrank: VCAdirect = 4.30 VS competitor = 4.50 DMozTrust: VCAdirect = 4.00 VS competitor = 4.18 when I analyze the site with the SEOmoz tool. We see this figures: VCAdirect: PA: 53 / MozR: 5.89 / MozT: 5.89 / Tot links 8415 VCAnederland: PA: 46 / MozR: 6.95 / MozT: 6.16 / Tot links 3051 On the on page Report card we score both an A. Where should we focus on to win the position?
Competitive Research | | PlusPort0