undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Link Building
  4. How does this site rank higher than a seemingly better one??

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.

How does this site rank higher than a seemingly better one??

Link Building
3
3
2.9k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Kibin
    Kibin last edited by Jan 7, 2013, 10:18 PM

    Ok, I'm really trying to wrap my self around all this SEO stuff.  Right when I think I'm grasping it, I come across something like this.

    When running a keyword difficulty report for the term "essay editing", the top two results are:

    www.papercheck.com/essay-editing.html

    www.gradesaver.com/essay-editing/

    The first result has a PA of 37, 2 linking page domains, DA of 48, and 197 root linking domains.

    The second has a PA of 65, 32 linking page domains, DA of 68, and 2,572 root linking domains.

    What the heck is going on here!?!?  I can't understand it.  I checked anchor text and that doesn't appear to be it.  The only thing I can find is that the papercheck has a link from a site (marketwire) with a DA of 90 while the #2 guy's highest linking domain has a DA of 60.

    However, I have a really hard time wrapping my head around this considering the total linking domain stats compared to one another.

    Any insight is much appreciate... this is frustrating trying to grasp these situations!

    Thanks!

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • MattAntonino
      MattAntonino last edited by Jan 8, 2013, 2:44 AM Jan 8, 2013, 2:44 AM

      You're not considering a lot of factors that go into SEO:

      1. Page speed could be better on #1.

      2. Over optimization on page 2 - with many links with anchor text that includes "editing"

      3. "editing" appears 80 times on page 1, 66 times on page 2, despite page 2 having more text.  I'm not saying this is a case of keyword density/spamming it, but maybe they're on the line and #2 is under it.

      4. Better overall inbound link authority to #2 possibly.

      5. Page 2 has repetition of both keywords in the title.  Google already punishes this if you don't have noODP by replacing your title with a more suitable one.  They aren't big fans of duplication but even so, #2 has a much different title.

      6. Co-citation.  Even with a better DA and PA, the related inbound links may be more relevant to essay editing on page 1.  Also, more domains may point directly at the subpage essay-editing.html than they do the absolute page at /essay-editing/index.php

      7. Analytics matter.  If #2 bounce rate is double #1, and the time on site for #1 is 4 minutes longer per visitor and they get more traffic through an email list that actually stays on site, they'd have a natural boost in the "analytics" department, as well.

      There are always a million reasons why one site could or may outrank another.  All you can realistically do is improve your site as much as possible, create relevant links back, get citations that all match, engage on social and have a site that responds well when people click it.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • Andropenis_Australia
        Andropenis_Australia last edited by Jan 7, 2013, 10:36 PM Jan 7, 2013, 10:36 PM

        The seo moz stats for a site is not the exactly same as what google uses to determine authority/trust so just because one seems to have more authority does not mean google thinks it is more relevant.

        Hence why even some new sites with minimal back links can outrank some very trusted sites on the same topic.

        Welcome to the wonderful world of seo, strap in and get comfortable because it's a never ending journey.

        All the best 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • 1 / 1
        1 out of 3
        • First post
          1/3
          Last post

        Got a burning SEO question?

        Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


        Start my free trial


        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.

        • See all categories

        Related Questions

        • realdy

          zero ranking keywords

          zero ranking keywords pescoonlinebill.com

          My website, pescoonlinebill.com, shows many queries in console but there are zero ranking keywords in MOZ dashboard.

          Link Building | Oct 13, 2023, 5:54 AM | realdy
          1
        • Alick300

          Links from coupon sites

          Hi All, I post coupons on coupon sites a month ago and when I checked backlinks of my website I saw approx 1000 links coming from coupon sites on my Brand Name. IMO it is quite natural please share your views. *All the big brands listed on that coupon sites e.g amazon, dell etc Thanks

          Link Building | Jul 9, 2015, 7:43 AM | Alick300
          1
        • SecJobs

          Top 20 sites for backlinking

          My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me.  I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well.  I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time.  My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?

          Link Building | Sep 17, 2012, 3:26 AM | SecJobs
          0
        • BostonWright

          Building backlinks for a newspaper site?

          Anyone have tips on building links to a newspaper site? I am looking for a strategy to create links to a news site beyond building one link at a time. We have so much content that is constantly updated that it would be impossible to do this one page at a time.

          Link Building | Feb 2, 2012, 4:44 PM | BostonWright
          0
        • limens

          Linking strategy between my own sites

          Hi, I have one main site, let's call it  food.com I also have 10 smaller sites, let's call them   mexicanfood.com, indianfood.com, italianfood.com etc food.com is on its own separate dedicated server the 10 smaller sites are all on a shared IP in hostgator I don't want Google to think that I have created the 10 sites for only purpose of creating links to each other. So, would you recommend that all those 10 sites link to each other? or should there be no interlinking within those 10 same IP domains? What about linking from those 10 sites to my main site? How should I structure my own backlinks not to get penalized by Google ?

          Link Building | Feb 2, 2012, 3:58 PM | limens
          0
        • DmitryP

          Is there a way to Rank above wikipedia?

          Is there a way to Rank above wikipedia? Please share any strategies.. Thanks

          Link Building | Aug 4, 2011, 3:38 PM | DmitryP
          0
        • BobGW

          List of High Ranking Directories

          Hi, Does anyone have a list of high ranking free or almost free directories that have high search engine rankings and have an opportunity for a link or links for a personal development site in the USA? The directories should have the following qualities: Old Site Age A lot of unique content (or as much as a directory can have) A clean site Plenty of Backlinks going to it Facebook followers (if possible, though this might be stretching it) high search engine rankings I think you get the general idea. I'm looking for directories that are high ranking and in for the long haul. They don't have to be free, but it's best if it's inexpensive. Thanks!

          Link Building | Sep 28, 2011, 7:42 PM | BobGW
          0
        • MarloSchneider

          Are press release sites useful?

          Many of my clients release newsletters and other peices of content qualify as press releases.  I have been wondering if people find that the press release sites such as PRleap or PRweb are useful and worthwhile?  If so, which do you feel is the best? Is there any research on this?  I am planning to record my results from these sites and perhaps make a Youmoz post in the future.

          Link Building | Jun 16, 2015, 1:24 PM | MarloSchneider
          6

        Get started with Moz Pro!

        Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

        Start my free trial
        Products
        • Moz Pro
        • Moz Local
        • Moz API
        • Moz Data
        • STAT
        • Product Updates
        Moz Solutions
        • SMB Solutions
        • Agency Solutions
        • Enterprise Solutions
        Free SEO Tools
        • Domain Authority Checker
        • Link Explorer
        • Keyword Explorer
        • Competitive Research
        • Brand Authority Checker
        • Local Citation Checker
        • MozBar Extension
        • MozCast
        Resources
        • Blog
        • SEO Learning Center
        • Help Hub
        • Beginner's Guide to SEO
        • How-to Guides
        • Moz Academy
        • API Docs
        About Moz
        • About
        • Team
        • Careers
        • Contact
        Why Moz
        • Case Studies
        • Testimonials
        Get Involved
        • Become an Affiliate
        • MozCon
        • Webinars
        • Practical Marketer Series
        • MozPod
        Connect with us

        Contact the Help team

        Join our newsletter
        Moz logo
        © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
        • Accessibility
        • Terms of Use
        • Privacy

        Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.