How can a site rank higher when you beat them by A LOT on virtually every SEOMOZ factor?
-
Any insight into what's driving these results would be appreciated.
Another site ranks #6 and we rank #22 on a keyword that scores 67% for "Keyword Difficulty", but we score significantly higher than them on almost every ranking factor including having nearly 10 times more backlinks along with higher PA and DA scores,etc. Here is a comparison from the Keyword Difficulty Tool report.
Question: What could be going on?
Factor and ranking comparison (us v. them) with our higher rankings are listed first.
PA: 61 v. 39,
mozRank 5,85 v. 4,54,
mozTrust 6.00 v. 5.49,
mT/mR = 1.0 v. 1.2,
total links = 4,198 v. 90,
internal links = 4198 v 90,
external links = 275 v. 57,
followed links = 4171 v 85,
no follow links = 27 v 5,
linking root domains = 46 v 30
on-page grade = A v B
broad keyword usage in title: yes v yes
broad keyword usage in document: yes v yes
keyword used in url = no v no
keyword used in domain = partial v no
KW exact match - no v no
exact anchor text links = 2373 v 13
%links w/ exact anchor text = 56% v 14%
linking root domains w/ exact anchor text = 7 v 8
% linking root domains w/ exact anchor text = 15% v 26%
partial anchor text links = 0 v 0
Domain Authority = 54 v 27
Domain mozRank = 5.4 v 3.2
Domain mozTrust = 5.8 v 3.7
DmT/DmR = 1.1 v 1.2
External links to domain 9261 v 63
Linking root domains to this domain = 355 v 33
linking c- blocks domains to domain = 267 v 30
tweets = 4 v 3
FB shares = 13 v 11
Google Plus one shares = 1 v 0
-
That's the problem! Although some do surprisingly!
Google's wise to this though and so if it sees that you have a good number of quality links, it won't penalise you for it. Otherwise a competitor could just build spammy links on your behalf and ruin your ranking!
-
Shelly, that is very helpful. Id pretty much thought that was it. Though I somehow doubt the owners of these rubbish sites are going to take the time to remove the links.
-
You should probably start a new Thread for this Tina - you'll get more responses.
The only way to remove bad links really is to contact the site owners where the bad links reside and ask them to remove them! There's no quick fix unfortunately.
You can use opensiteexplorer to seek out the links which are bad, then you'll need to go through them one by one, seek out the contact details for the site admin (using WHOis if necessary) and then ask for the link to be taken down.
If you have spammy links, you should also concentrate on creating QUALITY links at the same time. Google will usually ignore most spammy links as long as you have a reasonable number of good links in your profile as well.
Hope that helps.
-
Im sorry to ask what is probably a not too bright question - but how exactly do you get spammy links removed? For example, how did you get the Forex links taken down Andrew?
-
Look at where your links are coming from and try and get rid of any links that may come from spammy websites.
These could be websites that have many outbound links which bear no relation to each other or Sites which have no relation in subject matter to your website.
I recently checked my link profile and found loads of links from Forex trading sites, which all appeared to be really spammy! Cleaned up and saw my SERPs rise back into top 10!
-
Thx. watched it, makes good sense.
-
Here's a good video on it: http://acumenstudio.com/articles/2011/09/exact-match-vs-partial-match-in-seo-today/
You will want to start diversifying your anchor text. Start contacting some of the webmasters that you have links from, and ask them to change the anchor text.
-
I have considered this, but I suspect something else is playing a much bigger role.
Here's why --- a couple months ago we were not optimized for "exact match" and we were still below them. We've only been building exact match in the last couple months.
Also, if a site beats another on so many factors, is it really possible that just one factor like "exact match" links being over 20% could put you below them?
Seems like something else is in play here. No?
-
anything specific you have in mind to "clean up" the link profile?
-
2 years v 9 years; theirs is older, but ours is over 2 years old
-
In my experience it sounds like your link profile could be letting you down. Use OSE to analyse your links and try and clean it up.
-
Here's what Blueglass said about too many exact match links:
"Penalties, as opposed to rewards, are being reaped for too many exact match links."
In this article: http://www.blueglass.com/blog/link-building-in-a-pandas-world/
It used to be all about getting exact match links, but things have definitely changed. For starters, guess how easy it is to see if you are having a major hand in your link building? Super easy if you keep forcing exact match text.
I would suggest:
Making your link profile look more natural
Making sure most of your exact links come from the higher quadrant of your link profile (but still under 20% saturation)
Continue growing
-
Age of a domain registered seems to be a factor. I have been working on a newer site and our new site is ranking higher than our competitors in all seomoz factor but not over taking the older sites. All I can say is keep up the good work and one day you will catch up.
-
What is the age of both domains?
-
%links w/ exact anchor text = 56% v 14%
I've heard that 20%, depending on the vertical, is about the maximum threshold for exact match links. Perhaps you are over-optimized?
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
-
Ahrefs Much Higher Than Competitors But Competitors Doing Significantly More Traffic?
Hey guys, I'm baffled by checking my Ahrefs ratings lately. It looks like our rating just went up considerably... from over 1 million to now around 500k. One of my main competitors, however, has a much lower Ahrefs rank (over 3 million) but he does a considerable more amount of traffic than we do... how is this? My domain rating is higher than his by a lot. Very curious how this works.
Competitive Research | | jfishe19880 -
Possible google sandbox issue? Organically ranking page 1 for our number 1 keyword, but page 5 sometimes 6 on google?
What are some things I can look into to figure out why google is ranking us on page 5 sometimes page 6, with some slight rank boosts to rank 36 from 48 but then falls right back. While Yahoo and Bing rank us page 1 consistently, without these big drops back. I use google search ( webmaster tools ) daily, fix 404s and make sure to fetch new content I create. Our site is within the Sandbox issue time frame, google 1st indexed the site about a year and a half ago, the site has been through various SEO service checks, and has had those issues fixed ( some bigcommerce won't allow, such as full sitewide ssl and a few other small factors ) but all the big stuff was handled or will be 100% handled after this redesign is complete. But just still seems we're stuck in the google hole again. We do use adwords, but no clear signs as to why we'd suffer such hardships with google ranking, only thing we don't have optimized in terms of on page optimization from moz is keyword in url, of which will be changing within the next month or two, as we're rolling our a new redesign with SEO 100% at the forefront, nice url paths, with keywords in their url, much more responsive site that uses less resources. But before we release this redesign, I'd like to find out what toe we stubbed of google's to give us such a ranking blackeye... We don't have that many backlinks, and I know these are a huge factor, however, building quality backlinks it's harder than walking on water at time and on the same level as spinning hay into gold. Any ideas community...
Competitive Research | | Deacyde0 -
Can anyone explain to me why this website is top of the listings?
Hi folks, Since the latest penguin update, this website: <cite class="bc">www.sterlingbuild.co.uk</cite> is now appearing top of the listings for most 'Velux' related search terms e.g. velux windows, velux, velux windows online. I say top, VELUX themselves are actually top but then Sterling Build are top of all the other retailers that sell VELUX Windows. Why? Their link profile is appalling, the website is no better than their competitors as far as I can tell, their prices are more expensive - it makes no sense? Would be very grateful if anyone can work out why Google has decided they have the best website? Thanks, Luke
Competitive Research | | LukeyB300 -
Can I write guest blogs on competitor's blogs?
I have been doing some guest blogging and its hard to find guest blogs opportunities. I have found some but they are direct competitors. Is it safe to write guest post? by the way the are not local competitors. Any suggestion please. thanks
Competitive Research | | conversiontactics0 -
Tool for finding what keywords a competitor ranks for?
Does anyone know of any good tools that display what keywords a competitor ranks for? I have many competitors that I know get a lot of traffic, but I'm not entirely sure where the traffic comes from so it would be nice to plug in their url and get a general overview of what keywords they rank for and what positions.
Competitive Research | | shawn810 -
How to check the Pr and Da of a thousand sites
Hi, I have a list of a thousand sites. I want to qualify the sites based on Pr and Da so that I can do my outreach. Pls advice how this can be done without manually putting each site in ose. Cheers, Vishal
Competitive Research | | vishalkhialani0 -
How many Page Rank 8 sites are there?
Anyone have any estimate of how many Page Rank 8 sites are out there? Best, Steve
Competitive Research | | Aggie0