Much better authority and content than some competitors, why do they appear first?
-
On august we have lost the top positions for some keywords. Our website authority is 62 (google page rank 5), and some quite small competitors appear first now (some of them have authority 22, google page rank 3!).
Our only big change was the DNS server, from godaddy to dnsimple.com, which seems to be some milisseconds slower.
Every other metric is in our favor: from on-page repports to site speed. Sometimes by a factor of 3 or 4. What can be happening? We have also realized that, in private browsing, rankings will change a little bit in different cities, even if they are quite close to each other.
-
How long has it been since DNS change?
-
Thanks William. But WMT does not say a single word about penalties for this domains.
-
I would check WMT if there are any penalties on your domain.
Switching DNS usually will not cause any problem, there may be a delay due to DNS propagation and maybe Google crawled your site when it was down.
And authority and pagerank does not necessarily mean you will rank better but are just numbers to give you an idea. You can totally be in penalty with Google and have a PR7 and DA 70.
You need to see what your WMT says in messages and search impression numbers.
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
-
Methods for estimating competitor website traffic from natural search
Hi all, I'm currently working on some competitor analysis and estimating website traffic based on rankings and estimated search volume for approximately 500 keywords. I'm then estimating based on click through rate from Webmaster tools. I think this will give me a relatively accurate estimation but was wondering how everyone else does this? Any other methods out there? Thanks, Elias
Competitive Research | | A_Q0 -
Finding competitors best keywords?
How do I learn my competitor's best keywords? I realize I can add more keywords to my campaign but the problem is - I am not sure I am thinking of the right keywords. I don't want to compare with the keywords I am targeting - I want to know what THEY are targeting.
Competitive Research | | dealblogger1 -
Ranking better with worse figures
Six months ago a competitor e-commerce site appeared in the top 10. Now six months later he is at #2. (for the main keyword in my sector in Dutch language, competition +4 million) My site is 4 years old and since three years ranks at #1 or 2. I'm now at #3, behind the competitors site. My competitor has a HomePage PA of 36 with 2295 links from 26 domains, root domain DA 23 with 175000 links from 30 domains. My site has a HomePage PA of 49 with 6975 links froms 238 domains, root domain DA 40 with 310023 links from 269 domains. I have more specific landing pages, better and more content, code W3C checked .... Can somebody explain why a younger site with worse figures gets a better position in Google ranking?
Competitive Research | | noordhout0 -
How much do internal links help?
So I noticed in Site Explorer that my competitors mostly have internal links all over point to a page with the term I want to rank for, while very little external links. How much do internal links help? Should I have a link somewhere on every page pointing to my target page with the keyword, and then grab some external links? I link internally only when I see relevant, but maybe I'm not doing it enough. Looking forward to replies!
Competitive Research | | endlessrange0 -
How do I go about removing low authority, crappy, backlinks?
How do I go about getting rubbish backlinks on a clients websites removed? The links were created by a previous companies link building campaign, and I believe this (along with a few other things) could be the reason for their poor SERP's as they are an established website. Can I alert Google and get them to discredit the links, or do I manually have to try to make contact with the owners/webmasters of the websites to get the links removed? All help appreciated! Thanks
Competitive Research | | JustinWalmsley0 -
Site Ranks Better than Comp...but why?
My site is ranking better than some of the competition sites even though the Moz Rank and Moz Trust are lower, anyone know why?
Competitive Research | | CalgaryRealtor390 -
My client has shown me a similar site, though not a competitor. He wants to know what sites they are linked from that give them such a good Google rank for certain kewords. Can SEOMoz tell me this?
When using google.com.au and searching for "travel to france", www.frenchtravel.com.au is the 3rd organic result. (the 1st two are not travel businesses, they are non profit travel guides) My client, who runs www.visituk.com.au, an Australian site that organises tours of the UK, said "so we just need to add these sort of words to the site?" I said, yes, but it doesn't end there. The real task is to have a link to your site on other sites surrounded with the words "travel" and "UK". He asked if he could see a list of the sites the french site was being referred by relevant to the search phrase. Is there an SEOmoz tool for this? Or is there another way I can generate that list? Thanks Simon
Competitive Research | | electrik0 -
PA and PD better than my competitors is a way to rank better?
I got a site that stuck in last position of google's first page. My on-page is grade A for this particulary page, i got links for that page too. But My competitors PA and PD is better than mine, not too much, but it is. If i build more quality backlinks and start increasing my PA and PD probaly i will rank better than my competitors? Thats the factor that i have do cara abour now?
Competitive Research | | Ex20