Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
-
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches.
How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE?
Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
-
Hi Derek,
I have had a look at the backlink profiles of both sites. While yours is certainly much better than theirs in terms of number and quality of links - keep building links. 400 or so inbound links isn't a huge number. I suggest getting some high quality links from places like BBB.org (paid) or http://www.aboutus.org/DoFollow (free).
Now - looking at your on site analysis, you do pretty well for trophy terms like 'Bee Removal' - however I'm going to look at another term it seems you want to rank well for - 'San Diego Bee Removal'.
You're getting an F for this according to SEOmoz's on page reports. That term is not used anywhere on the page, in the title, in alt image tags, in a H1 tag or in bold/strong. Yes, you are trying to rank for it on this page - http://www.propacificbee.com/bee-removal-san-diego-bee-control.php - but if this is indeed one of your trophy terms (as I guess it would be by looking at your site) - why not try and rank for your homepage?
All those sub pages you have for different areas (Allied Gardens, Alpine, Bonita etc) should have more unique content too - there are way too many pages with VERY similar content. Google is going to frown upon this.
Hope this helps,
Brad
-
Well bing doesn't crawl and index as much as google ...maybe they're even blocking Bingbot. It's not unheard of.
-
my URL is ________________________
Competitor site is __________________
-
I thought there might be a way to block some link explorer bots but wasn't sure. Thank you for verifying that.
I was able to find a few more links on Bing's Link Explorer but still no substantial links.
-
Some blackhats/greyhats make it a point to block Mozbot, Majestic and other crawlers from their private networks. That prevents links from appearing in competitive reports.
So try using Bing's Link Explorer given that they usually allow Bingbot and Googlebot to crawl.
-
Don't be afraid to post the URL of your site and their site - it would help us to better understand the situation.
-
I didn't think on-page optimization would put you above a site with decent on-page optimization and a better link profile - but maybe it does.
They don't have any social profiles so social signals can't be a contributor to their high ranking.
-
I tried some other site explorers. There were a couple links that were shown on Majestic but not on OSE. None of the linkbacks seemed to be of any quality.
-
I dedicate one of my browsers for checking rankings and I never sign in, so it should be a pretty accurate SERP.
The content has remained the same since I have been tracking them. The only difference with their content and other competing sites is they have the exact-match keyword listed multiple times throughout the site. However, it looks and reads very unnatural.
-
Why don't you run SEOMoz's keyword competitiveness tools to get an idea of what makes them better. Also, take a look at some competitor data sets like Majestic and AHrefs - I always start with SEOMoz, but there is no reason to limit yourself to 1 data set. Chances are they have a bunch more spammy links that you aren't yet seeing, and those are giving them the lift.
-
The first thing that comes to mind, is how are you looking at the SERPS. You're not logged in are you? Clicking on a link while you're into your Google account will change the placing of it, as Google is always trying to recommend/localize your results. The best way to view the SERPs is in Incognito mode though that often doesn't always work.
If you are viewing the Competitor in Incognito and have seem him climb up, I would wonder if the links that he has passed have been affected by Panda or Penguin.
Yeah, I would also agree with AK, and take a look at the on-page optimization of the competitor. Has their on page optimization or content changed any?
-
You must remember that rankings don't only rely on back links. there are many factors like content, social signals & on page optimization to name the bigger players.
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
-
Directories and Domain Authority
I read all the time about how directories have very little weight in SEO anymore, but in my field, a lot of our competitors are propped up by paying for "profiles" aka links from places like martindale-hubbard, superlawyers, findlaw, nolo, Avvo, etc (which are essentially directories IMO) yet all those sites have very high DAs of 80 and above. So, are links from these sites worth it? I know that's a vague questions, but if Moz's algo seems to rank them so highly, I'm guessing that's reasonably close to what google thinks as well...maybe? Thanks for any insight, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Exact Keywords Domain name
Hello everyone!, I would love to have your opinion on this matter. I am working on a company e-commerce site; these guys would like to change their domain name AND their company name, so the most logical thing that came to mind was to name the domain after the company name. However, they also bought in the past a domain that have the exact keyword they would like to rank for. I know that keywords in the URL are not as important as they used to be in the past, but nonetheless when I do a Google search for those keywords, 3 domains out of 10 on the first page are slight variations of those same keywords, meaning that they might have a really good domain name (also the other result are government, medical stuff and so on). And, no matter how many times I have read that keywords in the URL are not so important anymore, I still see a lot of sites ranking also because of their domain name (well at least outside the US) So, my question here is: would it be better for them to use the exact match keyword-domain name or should they use their company name for their new site? Or some sort combination of the two? (the keyword-domain that in some way points also to the brand domain). Thanks for your opinions on this; really appreciate it! Cheers
Algorithm Updates | | Eyah0 -
Your search - site:domain.com - did not match any documents.
I've recently started work on a new clients website and done some preliminary work with on-page optimisation, and there is still plenty of work to be done and issues to resolve. They are ranking ok on Bing, but they are not getting any ranking on Google at all (except paid) - I tried the site:domain.com search and comes up with no results... so this confirms that something is going on with the google search rank! Can anyone shed light on what can cause this or why this would happen? My next step is to look at their webmaster tools (haven't had access yet), but if anyone has any tips to resolve this or where to look, that would be great! Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | ElevateCreativeAU0 -
Special Characters in Keywords
Do search engines consider keywords such as "1099 E-File Software" & "1099 "EFile Software" the same? Many of the keywords for my website will have a dash "-" when properly spelled out but there are many users who would simply omit it when spelling the word. Another example would be "W-2 Software" as opposed to "W2 Software".
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
Sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version
sub-domain or sub-directory for mobile version advantages or dis-advangages?
Algorithm Updates | | Superflys0 -
How to find which keywords bring traffic to a particular page on my website ?
I have been using Google Analytics and SEOMoz tools for a while now. I know which are my top landing pages and some of the keywords which bring me traffic. But I don't know which are the top searched keywords for my website as these are "not provided" by Google Analytics. More importantly, I want to know which keywords are directing traffic to a particular page on my website. Can anyone help ?
Algorithm Updates | | EricMoore0 -
Confused About Addon Domains and SEO
I find addon domains really confusing. Everyone I've asked so far says that they don't affect SEO but I find that really hard to believe considering the same content is on both a subdomain and a subfolder and also has it's own unique domain. PLUS (in my case) completely different niche sites are sharing the same hosting. I really don't want to pay for hosting for all of my different sites but at the same time, if it's better/safer to do so for Panda/Penguin reasons I'm happy to do that. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your opinions/suggestions!
Algorithm Updates | | annasusmiles0 -
Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently... Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute. For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc. I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes? Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs? What could be causing it to happen?
Algorithm Updates | | d4online0