Why does the order of the keywords affect my SERP? And what can I do to improve?
-
Hi all,
So, if you google "london life coach" my site appears #2 (www.nickhatter.com)
But if you google "life coach London" my SERP seems to fluctuate between #3 up to #6.
If you google "life coach in London" my SERP is a solid #2/3.
I don't get it all. Would someone care to explain?
Also, if you have any tips on how I might improve the EAT of my website please do feel free to weigh in!
Many thanks,
Nick -
The answer Google would like you to believe is that it's possible for the word ordering to imply different intents. In reality though, I think it's mainly an artefact of them not fully understanding meaning, or not being able to classify all pages and keywords perfectly.
My colleague Sam Nemzer wrote a post with research on this topic that you might find interesting.
-
I have the same going on with one particular keyword. The best way is to get a good link for that keyword thats having a lower or different ranking then the other keyword. Then it should be solved.
-
Nick,
It's kind of a head smacker when you think of it. It makes sense that the order of the words in the query would make a difference in ranking. Different orders may mean different things. Also, since google is trying to match the searcher's words to potential websites that satisfy the searcher's intent, the order of words on a website definitely a site's ranking for specific keywords. Those these may be only subtle differences between site's copy, but still, someone has to rank at the top for a particular order and someone still has to rank at the bottom for that same order. It's the algorithm.
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
-
Keywords in URL
I have an ecommerce store and i am using moz to get it into the best seo situation... my question is this..... I want to know how important it is to have the targeted keyword actually in the product page url.... I working on meta title and description which is good, but if i start changing all my product urls, it has major impact on the work i have to do since i would have to redo all my product links in ads, and all my product urls in emails, etc. So how much of a part do the urls play in seo?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bkhoward20010 -
Volatile SERPS?
I have a new client whose rank is jumping around a lot. I took over the account 7 weeks ago, but they'd been doing SEO with a decent provider. They switched to me because they thought he wasn't working very hard and he's not very nice. I just took them on in December and they started out at #18. On Dec 24 they were at 9, Jan 1 at 12, Jan 2 at 14, Jan 3 at 24, Jan 12 at 19, Jan 15 at 28, Jan 16 at 25, Jan 19 at 28 and today at 24. Some of the really bad black hattish providers have bounced up to the top. Any idea what's going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | julie-getonthemap0 -
Best approach to rank for this keyword?
Hi i want to rank for the keyword "white sandals" on Google Australia. Currently, the top 5 ranking pages are not optimised and specific to white sandals. See screenshot: https://image.prntscr.com/image/WenSRHqTTFSqYNg2MHvH1A.png To rank for this keyword, would you create a page dedicated to white sandals even though it looks like it doesn't matter and you could rank the broader sandals page (not colour specific). Any recommendations? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | crazy4seo780 -
How come a page can rank in top 10 for medium difficult keyword, with poor link profile.
Hi Moz Community, The keyword that http://customsigncenter.com/ is ranking for is "custom sign", the keyword difficulty is 38 (according to Moz Keyword Explorer). Here are the link metrics for the page and domain: Page authority: 27 Domain authority: 18 Facebook shares: 50 Linking RDs to the page: 7 Linking RDs to the Root Domain: 8 From the SERP, a lot of its competitors have better link profile than this guy. How come the page http://customsigncenter.com/ can rank 6th for the keyword "custom sign". Are there any important "hidden factors" behind the scene? Thank you for any help and support. Best, Raymond
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raymondlii1 -
Can cookies harm your webiste?
Hi mozzers, I am doing an seo audit and one of the components of crawlability in the audit template I have is: "Disable Cookies/Make Googlebot user agent", I am not quite sure why cookies could harm your SEO? Can someone explain me what problems can arise because of cookies? Does it prevent bots to crawl your website like .js on your nav? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Organic Google Sitelinks - can I edit?
A client just contacted me saying a competitor is threatening legal action threatened against a page description in a Google sitelink (just double checked and its in the serps results too). I checked the site and the content doesn't appear on that page or anywhere else on the site. I also added a Meta description to that page to see if that will have an effect. The page is the home page and I don't really want to demote it. Is there anything else I can/should do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | agua0 -
Ranking For Misspelling of Primary Keyword
I have been baffled for the past few months for ranking for the misspelling of our primary keyword BELIZE in the Google U.S. Serps. We are nowhere to be found, but are ranking for the misspelling BELIZ (without the final "e"). We have been online since 1995 on page one everywhere. 11 months ago we did a site redesign changing over to WP as a CMS. We changed all pages from widget-example.html to widget-example and properly 301ed all pages after deleting the old pages. Then we accidentally de-indexed the site for a month due to a robots.txt error. This has been corrected 4 months now. We shared this on the Google Webmaster forums and some kind folks helped with advice - nothing major in our opinion but we implemented most of the tips given. We are doing fine everywhere with all search engines and Google itself in other areas Google.ca Google.bz Google.mx for example. But in our primary market is the U.S. where the majority of our readers are - tourists and retirees looking for our information - we do not exist. The joke is that searching for BELIZ in the U.S. Google Serps has us on Page One. It is a joke that is NOT funny - or maybe some human evaluator made a mistake or is playing a sick joke? We have done a reconsideration request in case there was a manual penalty and we received the no manual penalty form letter. I notice increasingly in Google Live Analytics people typing in our full domain name - I guess out of frustration not getting the site when inputting the primary keyword. I find that I can write a new article and in a couple of weeks it ranks in the top couple pages. Many other pages are found via long-tail only. I find it intriguing that yesterday I wrote a very small article, a press release actually, and today searching for the misspelling BELIZ in the U.S. Google Serp the root domain is ranked #2 and the snippet and image displayed is from this little article which is nothing really great. I am new here. Thanks to anyone who can help. The site: Belize http://www.belize.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Belize0 -
Image maps and keyword density?!
If image maps/shapes are showing as keyword density in SEO tools, could they skewing the SEO effectiveness of a page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Crumpled_Dog0