Specific Page Penalty?
-
Having trouble to figure out why one of our pages is not ranking in SERPs, on-page optimisation looks decent to me.
Checked by using gInfinity extension and searched for the page URL.
Can one page be penalised from Google engines (.ie / .com ) and the rest of the website not penalised?
The (possible) penalised page is showing in Google places in SERPs. I assume this would not show if it was penalised.
Would appreciate any advice.
Thanks
-
You may get no traffic from ranking #4 these days, especially on queries with a competitive paid portion of the SERP.
What I would do is stop assessing the "what if" scenario's and start focusing all your energy towards acquiring those editorial type links grasshopper was talking about.. right now! You'll get that ranking and secure it for long-term traffic.
-
There's no way to give an accurate time-scale answer to that question. If you're able to get editorial links from authoritative, trusted sites, you can see substantial movement within a week or two of the links being crawled. However, if your links are from lower-quality sites, or are weighted heavily toward devalued methods of link building (directories, reciprocal links, three-way links, etc), engines may not give those links much weight, if any, no matter how long you wait.
-
It has ranked well previously, according to Rank tracker on SEOmoz - it was ranking 4th last week however I don't think that is correct.
Is it a reliable tool??
Organic traffic shows no drop for keywords for the page in 2012 nor does page views for the page. If it was over-optimised, these would be noticeble in Google Analytics..
-
To me, the true clue would be whether or not the URL ranked well previously.
If it has not.. you need more links. It is probably a page authority issue.
If it has.. you may have over-optimized on the anchor text, sitewide links will do this. You may rank well for awhile, then you'll find yourself on page five shaking your fist at Google.
-
Hi Grasshopper,
I know the keywords I am trying to rank for are competitive.
I will take that into consideration and start working on these. How long do this take effect in Google engines?
Thanks
-
Hi Ronan,
Since it passes tests 1,2 and 4, I would say that #3 is the culprit. Having solid on-page optimization is great, but link authority is the name of the game for achieving ranking, especially if the keywords you're trying to rank for are competitive.
Run the Keyword Difficulty Tool against the keywords you're trying to rank for. I would expect that the URLs on page 1 of the SERPs all have significantly significantly stronger, more trustworthy link profiles than your URL does.
If that's the case, all the standard advice applies - create a truly differentiated page that offers content / resources / tools above and beyond what your competitors offer, and market the hell out of it.
-
The page is indexed
-
Hi Grasshopper,
Thanks for your input. I have checked each one and appears to be fine:
-
Yes
-
Text is true content on the page
-
The page itself does have low inbound links. It might be this?
-
Appearing first
Despite low number of inbound links, I wouldn't say this alone would cause the ranking issue as the page is well optimised and similar to competitors.
-
-
Hi Ronan,
First, to your general question - yes, it is possible for one page of a domain to be penalized / filtered, while the rest of the domain is not. However, it seems extremely unlikely that the URL in question would rank in Google Places if it was penalized. There are a few things you want to check:
-
The first thing you want to check is whether or not the page is indexed and cached, which is a simple query [cache:mypage.com/this-page]. Does it return a result?
-
If so, in the gray banner across the top of the cached page, click on "Text-only version". Does the machine-readable text match the true content on the page? If you have large amounts of machine-readable text that are only visible to an engine, and not a user, that can trip an algorithmic spam filter. Also, look for off-topic words - sometimes sites get hacked and hackers inject all kinds of spammy garbage and links, which can also trip the filter.
-
If the page is cached, and rendering the intended content, does it have sufficient link authority to rank for the terms you intend? It's quite possible that your page is in a competitive keyword space, and doesn't have enough juice to push past the competition.
-
If you want to see if it has enough juice to rank for anything at all, pick an sentence in the first paragraph of text, and search for it enclosed in quotes, ["Some random sentence from my first paragraph here."] Is your URL the #1 result? It should be. If there are other sites that you've syndicated your content to, or have scraped your content and are more authoritative than your site, it's possible that your URL isn't ranking because it's being (incorrectly) filtered out as duplicate content.
Hope that helps.
-
-
Is the URL no longer in Google's index at all?
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
-
How to hide our duplicate pages from SERP? Best practice to increase visibility to new pages?
Hi all, We have total 4 pages about same topic and similar keywords. These pages are from our main domain and sub domains too. As the pages from sub domains are years old and been receiving visits from SERP, they stick to 1st position. But we have recently created new pages on our main domain which we are expecting to rank on 1st position. I am planning to hide the sub domain pages from SERP using "Remove URLs" for some days to increase visibility to new pages from main domain. Is this the right and best practice to proceed with? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is it Okay to have "No Response" pages?
Hi all, I can see some "No Response" pages which gives a error message "Site cannot be reached" or keeps on loading but don't. I have got this list from Screaming from spider tool. Do we need to fix these or ignore? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Header Structure In Product Gallery Page
Hi Everyone, Should product names have an H2 header tag on a gallery page? (H1 already optimized) Why or why not?
Algorithm Updates | | JMSCC0 -
Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?
I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?
Algorithm Updates | | micromano0 -
Ecommerce good/bad? Showing product description on sub/category page?
Hi Mozers, I have a ecommerce furniture website, and I have been wondering for some time if showing the product descriptions on the sub/category page helps the website. If there is more content displayed on the subcategory, it should be more relevant, right? OR does it not matter, as it is duplicate content from the product page. I think showing the product descriptions on non-product pages is hurting my design/flow, but i worry that if I am to hide product content on sub/category pages my traffic will be hurt. Despite my searches I have not found an answer yet. Please take a look at my site and share your thoughts: http://www.ecustomfinishes.com/ Chris 27eVz
Algorithm Updates | | longdenc_gmail.com0 -
Double Listings On Page One
I've been noticing a trend over the past month and a half. My sites that use to get more than one page listed in certain SERPs are now being adjusted. It almost looks manual but I know it is most likely a change in the algorithm. Let's say I had a SERP where my site was showing two different sub-pages in a single SERP at #4 and #6 are now having one page being pushed up to #3 but the other page is being pushed back past the first page. I'm not worried about penalizations or loss of value. I have been seeing this accross many of my client's sites. I just wanted to confirm that others were seeing it as well (so I'm not going crazy) and/or if Google has made any announcements or leaks regarding this shift. Maybe it's just my sites coming of age or something but I would love to be able to explain it more knowledgeably than with a "Google might be doing this". BTW - This is not effecting any of my Brand SERPs.
Algorithm Updates | | BenRWoodard0 -
When did Google include display results per page into their ranking algorithm?
It looks like the change took place approx. 1-2 weeks ago. Example: A search for "business credit cards" with search settings at "never show instant results" and "50 results per page", the SERP has a total of 5 different domains in the top 10 (4 domains have multiple results). With the slider set at "10 results per page", there are 9 different domains with only 1 having multiple results. I haven't seen any mention of this change, did I just miss it? Are they becoming that blatant about forcing as many page views as possible for the sake of serving more ads?
Algorithm Updates | | BrianCC0 -
Duplicate Content & www.3quarksdaily.com, why no penalty?
Does anyone have a theory as to why this site does not get hit with a DC penalty? The site is great, and the information is good but I just cannot understand the reason that this site does not get hit with a duplicate content penalty as all articles are posted elsewhere. Any theories would be greatly appreciated!
Algorithm Updates | | KMack0