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
-
Http vs Https Related Rankings Drop?
I've noticed in a number of keyword ranking tools (Moz included) that our rankings have dropped substantially for a number of our top performing keywords precisely 7 days back. When you view the attached screenshot you'll see there was a drastic drop in the overall organic impressions as well as a drop in keyword rankings. I also noticed that all the keywords which have dropped in rank now show with the https version of our home page url. I've read up on this and it believe that this should not cause a drop in rankings but we have even added https as a domain in webmaster tools with no improvement. Quite simply, has Google de-indexed our http home page url which was previously tied to our higher rankings for our core keywords? How can we get this back without "disavowing" our https version of the site. We're not doing anything to game search results so I dont think we're being penalized, simply there is some sort technical glitch taking place between recognizing HTTP vs HTTPS versions of our site. Our home page is goo.gl/qVPRwf and an example keyword is "wedding ring sets his and hers" Can anyone recommend further debugging steps or have an understanding of what can be done at this point? Also, if it helps, I have studied the Help Center, read the FAQs and searched for similar questions with no success.wedding ring sets his and hers impressions%20-%20ranking%20drop.png?dl=0
Algorithm Updates | | punitshah0 -
Are companies buying .company domains?
Hi All, Are companies buying .company domains? And does anyone have any thoughts on the future rank-ability of these domains? Kind regards! 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | Avid_Demand0 -
Ecommerce or E-commerce as a Keyword?
I have done a good bit of research but am not sure which word to focus on. I feel that the trend is moving towards no hyphen but I do not have any data to justify that other than google trends. Here is the research I found: Google Trends says ecommerce is more popular
Algorithm Updates | | Manseo
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=e-commerce%2C%20ecommerce&cmpt=q Ngram says e-commerce
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ecommerce%2Ce-commerce&year_start=1990&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cecommerce%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ce%20-%20commerce%3B%2Cc0 Google Adwords Keyword tool says e-commerce:
e-commerce has 33,100 monthly search volume
ecommerce has 14,800 monthly search volume What do you think, will ecommerce overtake e-commerce in the future monthly search volumes? Ecommerce or E-commerce?0 -
I thought META KEYWORDS tag was dead?
http://www.wpkube.com/wordpress-seo-plugin/ this article just came out as a one of the many guides to Yoast's Wordpress SEO. I am surprised it mentioned: Use meta keywords tag: Google reportedly doesn’t use the keywords that your enter for your posts but as Google isn’t the only show in town, you might want to check this box.Recommendation: check I stopped using meta keywords tag because Google doesn't use it any more, plus if you are in a competitive field by using keywords you are giving free keyword research to your competitors? Does any one still use meta keywords here? If so why? Google doesn't use keyword tags, has anyone experienced a dis-benefit to meta-keywords tag from Google ie. dropped rankings etc.?
Algorithm Updates | | vmialik2 -
Decline in ranking for a particular theme of keywords after Penguin 2.0
Hi everyone Last month we found on of our clients rankings were seeing significant declines in ranking (like from 3 to 28). This occurred around the time of the Penguin 2.0 update. After further investigation we found that only a collection of keywords were affected. If we were hit by the algorithm update we would expect to find all keywords declining. We have not been manually penalized and other keyword themes are seeing moderate day to day ranking improvements. I know that rankings jump from day to day but a sudden decline of around 20 places for a theme of keywords isn't what we would expect. Thanks all.
Algorithm Updates | | PeteW0 -
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 -
How can Chrome rankings vary wildly from Mozilla and IE8?
Our website (www.theideapeople.com) has generally ranked on page 4 on Google search for the phrase "charlotte web design" for the past year...regardless of which browser I used. Oh, and my browser location is always set to Charlotte, NC. I also have the Moz toolbar installed and logged-in. Today, I Googled the same keyword using Chrome and we were on page 1 in 4th position! The other browsers still showed us on page 4, as usual. Has anybody else noticed this wild variance with Chrome? Is Chrome learning that I work at The Idea People?!!
Algorithm Updates | | theideapeople0 -
Why have I lost rankings for my top 10+ keywords
Hello, As of 04/24/11 I have lost rankings for my top 10+ keywords in an extremely competitive market. I was ranking on page 1 in Google for keywords like: iphone app reviews, ipad app reviews, iphone app videos, ipad app videos, and more. Since 04/24 I have fallen off the first 10 pages + in Google for all major keyword & keyword terms. I have identified that I have 1,359 articles from prmac, which contain links to customers who published press releases through prmac. We are in the process of removing these pages, but creating a list of urls to prove to Google the possibly offending blog posts are gone. Beyond that I am not sure what else to do, please help. URL: http://www.crazymikesapps.com. thank you Mike
Algorithm Updates | | crazymikesapps0