Why is this site ranking 1st?
-
I'm a relative SEO newbie, so please go easy on me.
I've been an SEOMOZ pro user for a few months and have used it to dramatically improve my organic rankings.
However, for the life of me, I cannot determine why the site that currently ranks number one, does so. For the factors I can determine, they shouldn't be ranking where they are, but reality is different. Could someone please offer me some ideas?
My target keyword is "photography classes edmonton"
My site is www.bsop.ca and I'm targetting the Google Canada engine.
Any and all assistance is appreciated.
-
Hi Paul, I took a quick look at the OSE for your site and your competitor. It seems to me that we are both running into a similar issue. How old is your site? When did SEO work on your site begin?
Your competitor has forum posts from 2009 here: http://www.thephotoforum.com/
Have you considered joining and posting on this forum?
Perhaps there's another one that you could join as well?check out this thread that I started for where I'm coming from.
http://www.seomoz.org/q/aged-sites-or-5-year-old-seo -
Site age could also have a lot to do with it...also, is your anchor text the exact keyword you are trying to rank for?
-
Thanks for the information.
But when I look at Opensitexplorer.org and compare the two sites, I see that they have 28 links from 4 domains (highest domain authority is 61) while my domain has 122 inbound links from 14 domains (highest domain authority is 97.
So, I know I'm still learning, but I guess I'm still missing where the deficiency is?
Thanks,
Paul
-
I am assuming you are trying to rank against the first results www.cplc.ca
If you look at the links in open site explorer, you can see that this website has targeted exact match anchor text from pretty high domain authority domains (in the 50s and 60s). You can see all externals links pointing to that domain here:
Your backlink profile isn't as diverse and targeted as theirs. Try looking at their links and try to get the same ones pointing to your targeted page, which looks like your home page.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Studies showing that social sharing does/doesn't affect rankings?
I'm currently researching this area in order to show to a client that social shares aren't as valuable for SEO as they might think. Can anyone point me in the direction of the best studies done on this topic? Thanks in advance!
Algorithm Updates | | QubaSEO0 -
New Zealand rankings - Is Google taking city into account now?
I've just noticed over the last 24 hours that Google New Zealand seems to be taking city into account with the search results - when I search from Christchurch - I get CHCH companies and Auckland results when searching from Auckland. I would like to rank my client nationally - any tips? Has anyone else noticed this? I need to be the top of Google for my keyword throughout the country. Any articles that could help? Kind regards, David
Algorithm Updates | | David_Buckingham0 -
Why is site dropping in rank after we update it?
One of our sites - supereyes.com - appears to drop in rank after we update it. The client notified us of this today and I've verified that it did indeed drop in Google -- four spots since last week. He says this happens every time we make changes to the site, but then a week later it will go back up and is usually higher than where it was before. I have not verified this, but I'm very worried it may not rise again In the past week, we've posted a new blog entry to their site and we've changed some of the content -- specifically, added their locations to the header, added a contact page and put two testimonials in their sidebar. We've also had someone submitting their site to directories and local business sites like Angie's List and so forth. There are about 16 new backlinks established in the past 2-3 weeks. Also, I should note, traffic is higher than it's ever been, but the client doesn't look at traffic. They only look at their Google results. Can anyone offer any insight into what's going on here and if I need to be worried the site won't rise again in the rankings?
Algorithm Updates | | aloley0 -
6 year old Corporate domain lost all rankings on EMD day.
Hello, our company's website goo.gl/7Q56G lost all our rankings after the EMD algo update. Our domain is NOT a EMD. At the same time, I found that we have about 6000 new, extremely low quality spam backlinks with the same anchor text ("loan"). I saw some of those a few weeks ago, but didn't really pay much attention because I didn't believe Google would think we build those. I didn't get any messages on webmaster central. If this occurred with the EMD update, is it because of the low quality backlinks? Most of the real spammers, brokers (we are the actual funding source) are now dominating the top 10 for our main keyword "merchant cash advance". We were in the top 10 for the past 4 years, why would we get hit so hard now? I really appreciate your advice.
Algorithm Updates | | DaveMri1 -
Whats next after I rank for many keywords?
I have a client who came to me wanting to know what's next for her as she already ranks in the top 5 for hundreds of keywords. She is right, her rankings for her niche are excellent and there are no relevant keywords for her to try and go after. What would be next to generate traffic? p.s She also has links from just about everyone in the industry that's relevant There has to be more "tricks" to seo besides keywords and link building
Algorithm Updates | | StreetwiseReports0 -
What determines rankings in a site: search?
When I perform a "site:" search on my domains (without specifying a keyword) the top ranked results seem to be a mixture of sensible top-level index pages plus some very random articles. Is there any significance to what Google ranks highly in a site: search? There is some really unrepresentative content returned on page 1, including articles that get virtually no traffic. Is this seriously what Google considers our best or most typical content?
Algorithm Updates | | Dennis-529610 -
Google said that low-quality pages on your site may affect rankings on other parts
One of my sites got hit pretty hard during the latest Google update. It lost about 30-40% of its US traffic and the future does not look bright considering that Google plans a worldwide roll-out. Problem is, my site is a six year old heavy linked, popular Wordpress blog. I do not know why the article believes that it is low quality. The only reason I came up with is the statement that low-quality pages on a site may affect other pages (think it was in the Wired article). If that is so, would you recommend blocking and de-indexing of Wordpress tag, archive and category pages from the Google index? Or would you suggest to wait a bit more before doing something that drastically. Or do you have another idea what I could to do? I invite you to take a look at the site www.ghacks.net
Algorithm Updates | | badabing0