Competitor ranks high, but how?
-
On our campaign, I have three local competitors which I like to keep an eye on. Two have been around for years but the other is pretty new. According to Moz, he has a Domain Authority of 1, has no backlinks and ranks lower on every keyword I keep track of.
How then is he getting ahead of us for certain search terms? Can Moz not give any more information?
-
If you click a users profile, you can click a link that allows them to message them directly.
-
Very welcome. I came across that article yesterday so it was fresh in my mind when I saw your question.
Best of luck!
Zack
-
That is very useful, thanks Zack.
-
Thanks Robert. I suppose really I'm a bit frustrated that Moz doesn't do a bit more when it comes to competitor information. Majestic and a couple of other FREE tools list quite a few backlinks (though less than ours) while Moz reports... zero.
-
Thanks for your response. Is it possible to send URL privately? Distinct possibility that the other person is on here!
-
I think it's well worth mentioning also that there are many other important factors beyond backlinks. You find the following article very helpful:
Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List by Brian Dean for Backlinko
http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factorsBest,
Zack -
Hi Rob and Sarah,
My first guess is that the websites is answering that specific question/query better than yours. Are those well performing pages significantly different than the pages that don't come up so high?
Ps: keep in mind that Domain Authority is an interpretation of Moz, and not from Google. Also keep in mind that Moz is nog aware of all the backlinks. Even if the links are out there for a year. Moz tries to "only show the most important links to the domain".
Google sees a lot more links to a domain than Moz does.
-
Rob and Sarah,
I would like to point out a few things:
1. Try Majestic's backlink checker. It more comprehensive than Moz's.
2. Don't forget that Google Algo isn't that simple. There are a ton of factors that could be influencing it: Maybe the website has great user signals like CTR, dwell time, etc. Do they have a great social presence that has provided visitors?
Anyway, i am speaking in generalities and we would need more specifics to help further...like both your web addresses
Nails
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
-
What factors are effecting our rank?
Can anyone shed some light on why this might be? Our website has a higher DA and PA yet the competition rank higher for some keywords. Even though our on page grader is higher or marginally different. **Our Website ** DA - 13 PA - 20 Keywords - 390 Linking Domains - 24 Total Inbound - 37 Follow - 14 Competitor DA - 8 PA - 15 Keywords - 640 Linking Domains - 12 Total Inbound - 79 Follow - 65
Competitive Research | | Jesssherl1 -
(Need helps here!) Can homepage and other internal pages (services) rank high together on Google?
Hi Moz community, Recently I am working on our website's SEO. Our company is a marketing agency. We provide general marketing services and also web design. Here is the content of our homepage and internal pages (specific services). Homepage (marketing agency) Internal page #1 (XXX marketing service) Internal page #2 (YYY marketing service) Internal page #3 (web design) I suggest to my supervisor that we could make some improvement and optimize different keywords for these 4 pages, respectively (homepage, internal page #1 #2 #3). However, my supervisor holds a different point of view that homepage and internal page#3 cannot rank both high for their own keywords because web design is not as related to marketing. So I did some research and look for some top-ranking marketing agency guys who also offer web design. I found their internal pages about web design service rank pretty bad for their own web-design-related keywords. Here are my thoughts and guess (please correct me if I am wrong): Google takes everything into account and deems web design to be kind of irrelevant content to the website, so the internal page for web design will not rank high. The internal page has so much lower power than the homepage so it got outranked by the guys whose homepages are all about web design and development. My question is: In above case, can homepage and other internal pages (our services) all rank high together for their own keywords? I know what I wrote is kind of confusing...But I really need help here and want to solve this problem badly. Really appreciate any help!! Thank you in advance! Best, Raymond
Competitive Research | | Raymondlee0 -
How to understand a site's current ranking
I know this is basic stuff, so sorry for the beginners post... I offer primarily web design services, and I need to know when taking on a new client, how can I assess the current 'lay of the land' for their site in terms of their SEO? I have had some issues in the past where launching a new design negatively affected their performance for their keywords, and obviously I would like to avoid this in future without having to go to 3rd parties. In particular I have an issue where the client themselves are very bad at giving information about what keywords they currently rank for, and what SEO activities they may have done in the past. How can I make these assessments myself? thanks for any help p
Competitive Research | | panamandm0 -
How to top competitor's article
Hello, For bobweikel.com I'm going to work on getting some natural backlinks by making a better article than http://www.medicinenet.com/weight_loss/article.htm even though they're 30 times more of an authority than me. If you think this is a good idea, how do you recommend I top this thing? I'm just brainstorming
Competitive Research | | BobGW0 -
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.
Competitive Research | | PauloSilveira0 -
Tracking competitors in search engines
Hi Mozzers, I'm using Advanced Web Rankings (AWR) to track my site and a number of competitors in Google - seeing how rankings and brand visibility change from week to week. I didn't set this up from scratch and I'm worrying with all of the recent algorithm changes that I might well be tracking the wrong competitors. Is there a tool or methodology I can use to find the biggest players in the market? I'm in the travel market so there's lots of choice and I track the large sites but want to be sure I'm aware of smaller/mid-sized sites gaining visibility without me tracking them via a platform like AWR. Many thanks!
Competitive Research | | panini0 -
Can i see the keywords my competitors are optimizing seo for?
Ideally, I would get a list of the keywords my competitors are targeting.
Competitive Research | | sajalsahay0 -
What metrics are you using to build profiles of competitors Google Places pages?
Hi, I am attempting to put together a set of procedures to undertake when optimizing Google Places pages. Does anyone have a good list of metrics and methods for determining them in order to build profiles of competitors' Places pages? Thanks
Competitive Research | | networkelites0