Why did google pick this page to rank over another one?

[DoRM]

I recently started working here and I have noticed that google is ranking some pages over other for the main key word.

Example:

We are ranking on page one for ATV tires for this url http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/43/81/165/723/ATV-Tires-All

I thought google would pick

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/81/165/ATV-Tires since it is higher up in the folders.

I Have a couple reasons why the are picking the other one.  Mostly from link signals from one other site and footer link..  Any other thoughts.

If we want google to rank the second url instead what would you suggest?

[DoRM]

Yes i used the tools and i got the same results you did.  My question is if I use some anchor text and point them to the second page from the first page and other relevant pages on the site will it help with the rankings?

Real example:

I want to have it rank for motorcycle tires, however, gogole is ranking http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/cl/50/Tires-and-Wheels the highest and also it puts

http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/d/12/Motorcycle-Tires

and http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/49/-/181/750/Motorcycle-Tires-All

before http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/49/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires and this is the one they wan to rank.  I started working here about 1 month ago and I am looking at ways I can get the target page to rank.  Right now it is now where and the non target page is ranking on page three.  Why does google pick that page over the target one?

[DoMiSoL]

Hi DoRM,

I paste for you the Page SeoMoz metrics taken from the SEOMoz bar and from the on page report card:

1. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/43/81/165/723/ATV-Tires-All
   PA: 27 mR: 5.13 mT: 5.76
   Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 132
2. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/81/165/ATV-Tires
   PA: 23 mR: 3.82 mT: 5.54
   Total Keyword Usage for this Page = 124

Higher page authority, rank and trust are serious reasons for the search engine to give higher ranking to a page.

Plus, the on-page SeoMoz report grades both pages with A, but reports more keyword occurrencies in the first page.

So for both on/off the page metrics the first page results in being ranked better.

I hope this can be a starting point.

DoMiSol