How come this site does so well?
-
Hi Guys,
It's bugging the crap out of me why this site does so well http://www.stagedinburgh.com/ when I look at it's link profile its so weak and terrible plus many links comes from the sites they own. Somehow the site out ranks many sites for search terms like edinburgh stag party, edinburgh stag do, edinburgh stag weekends. Am I missing something? They seem to only have links from 13 domains and they aint great.
What am I missing?
-
Sorry for slow response kids school holidays have started! Yeah Doug i thought their on-page was well stuffy, almost spammy but some how they still get away with it.
What i have noticed on a few tests we have done in May / June is how quickly I can get a new site to rank for 2 or 3 keywords and stick in a matter of weeks.
Bang goes my theory of building one great website and it's back to building micro sites specific and not have all eggs in one basket.
Tom I know I should not get wound up by it, but when you spend 10 years on a brand / site to be beaten by some crappy sites it's hard to swallow, like anchovies
Dan yeah the site has ranked high for a while, and I see his other sites doing well, I may wake up one day and he gets hit across his network but to date that's not happened and I am not sure he is actually breaking any Google rules.
-
Hey There
This is an odd one for sure, and a really crowded space with a ton of EMDs and PMDs so a lot of noise. But I have a few hunches just after looking around a bit.
1. Their site is visually blazingly fast compared to chillisauce.
2. Their site is one of the few I could find, where the entire domain is hyper-focused on "stag in edinburgh" - and has the benefit of the homepage being the page to rank or match topically for those types of keywords. Whereas chillisause and some others are broader focused in what the site is about - and so architecturally, or linking, perhaps not as easy for Google to rank/credit those types of pages within the site, in this case, and as Doug pointed out perhaps their on-site is not so strong.
3. User metrics could be playing a role - CTR in serps etc. They actually stand out as being the least spammy of most other results, and have a shorter domain name (less spammy looking).
But yeah, there's plenty of anomalies - all exact match anchors for linking, less links, a borderline spammy/keyword-stuffed website. Has this site done well for a really long time?
-Dan
-
"Now, it's a guess, but I'm wondering whether the website is using the .htaccess file to block some crawlers, such as OSE and Majestic, from looking at its link profile. So there could be a bunch of links that are not being seen."
Tom, surely this would only block such crawlers from identifying outbound and internal links from their site - not the inbound ones. OSE is showing the inbound links so it doesn't appear to be blocked. The spiders.txt file is used to help identify bots rather than block them.
Looks like lots of on-page optimisation there! Compare it to this one which has better PA/DA but just look at the on-page:
-
Hi Mark
The site-wide links from those domains you mentioned would probably be giving a lot of juice, plus the on-page optimisation is certainly geared to those keywords (perhaps more so).
However, there might be something more to this. In the robots.txt file, they are disallowing a file called: Disallow: /spiders.txt. In the spiders.txt file, you've got a list of a whole bunch of web crawlers on the net.
Now, it's a guess, but I'm wondering whether the website is using the .htaccess file to block some crawlers, such as OSE and Majestic, from looking at its link profile. So there could be a bunch of links that are not being seen.
The thing is, this is all speculation - which is why I always advocate not to spend too much time focusing on competitors. It's definitely frustrating and sometimes more frustrating than helpful. Looking at competitors can provide some takeaways and quick wins, but if there are none on display, as in this case, accept defeat and move on.
Not much help I know, but hope it does somewhat.
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
-
A single page from site not ranking
Hello, We have a new site launched in March, that is ranking well in search for all of the pages, except one and we don't know why. This page it is optimised exactly the same way like the others, but still doesn't rank in Google. We have verified robots.txt for noffollow, noindex tags, we have verified if it was penalized by Google, but still didn't find nothing. Initially we had another site and was on the topic of this page, but we have redirected it to the new one. In case this old site was anytime in the past penalized by Google, could it be possible that the new page be influenced by this? Also, we have another site that ranks on the first position, that targets the same keywords like the page that does not rank. It was the first site we launched, so it is pretty much old, but we do not have duplicate content on them. Maybe Google doesn't like the fact that both target the same keywords and chooses to display only the old site? Please help us if you have any ideas or have been through such thing. Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniela.pirlogea0 -
Web Site Ranking
Hi Folks, I made some changes on my website www.gemslearninginstitute.com and published it two days ago. It was ranking on Google first page for a few keywords. I did not touch the pages which were ranking on first page. Since then I am not seeing the website ranking on the Google. Does it take a few days to rank again? How can I ensure that next time if I update the website or publish some blog on my website then it should not effect the ranking. Secondly, if I would like to rank in three different cities then do I need to create separate pages for each city or how should I proceed with this. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | fslpso0 -
There is no change of address pending for your site
Hi everyone. Google has recently started using our old .net instead of .com in the SERPS. I went to do a change of address for the old http://www.sqlsentry.net and it gives me the "There is no change of address pending for your site." I've tried for both www and non-www and still get the same result. All pages seem to be redirecting to the new site with no issues. Is there anything else I can do to change this? Or is there a step I'm missing? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sika220 -
Why does old "Free" site ranks better than new "Optimized" site?
My client has a "free" site he set-up years ago - www.montclairbariatricsurgery.com (We'll call this the old site) that consistently outranks his current "optimized" (new) website - http://www.njbariatricsurgery.com/ The client doesn't want to get rid of his old site, which is now a competitor, because it ranks so much better. But he's invested so much in the new site with no results. A bit of background: We recently discovered the content on the new site was a direct copy of content on the old site. We had all copy on new site rewritten. This was back in April. The domain of the new site was changed on July 8th from www.Bariatrx.com to what you see now - www.njbariatricsurgery.com. Any insight you can provide would be greatly appreciated!!!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WhatUpHud0 -
Site wide links Concept
Hi All, All type of site wide links are bad for Google or it depends upon other factors as well? For example if you talk about GoDaddy or any other service provider company they put their links on the footer of other websites so in this condition, Google will harm their rankings or not? Also elaborate the best practices for site wide links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RuchiPardal0 -
What is wrong with my site?
I could use suggestions/input. My site is consistently being beaten by doorway pages with zero to no content. In fact, on the keyword "lawrenceville plumber" I am being beaten by a KID with a blank wordpress installation. I really need help determining what my issues are and what I can do to help. According to all of the graders, ranks, etc my site is great. I have written tons of unique content, have added a blog unique articles and self-helps. Please help! My site is www.akinsplumbing.net. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chuckakins0 -
4 sites on same server with similar theme
Hi, We're building 4 e-commerce stores at the moment which are all very similar. They all sell sofas but to different markets. Product content will be different on each site so the content won't be duplicated but the overall theme of the sites will be the same, all on the same server, being launched at the same time. Should I be concerned that Google may not index all of them? Thanks, Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyMediaLounge0 -
Changing Site URLs
I am working on a new client that hasn't implemented any SEO previously. The site has terrible url nomenclature and I am wondering if it is worth it to try and change it. Will I lose rankings? What is the best url naming structure? Here's the website http://www.formica.com/en/home/TradeLanding.aspx. (I am only working on the North America site.) Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlightAnalytics0