How is this possible? #2 ranking with NO on-page keywords, no backlinks, no sitemap...
-
Hi everybody.
I have a question ... I'm totally stumped.
This question is being asked today (November 16th, 2015) just after Google updated something in their algorithm. Nobody seems to know what they did. and it has something to do with the new "Rank Brain" system they're now using.
My niche is Logo Design Software (https://www.thelogocreator.com).
I had the keywords "logo creator" on the page roughly 7 times. After Google updated, I lost about 10 spots and as of this writing, I've dropped to #15. So, maybe I over optimized. fine.
Noticing that for the keyword "logo creator" ... NONE of the top 14 spots actually have "logo creator" in their page title and NONE of them have more that 2 instances (if any) of the keyword "logo creator" on the actual page.
So I removed ALL instances of my keyword "logo creator" from my home page - used the Webmaster's Fetch Tool and moved up a few spots instantly.
So what the heck?
And the #2 spot for that keyword is www.logomakr.com - they have NO words at all on their pages, no blog, no sitemap and far fewer links than anybody in the top 10.
Can anybody reading this shed some light?
Marc
Marc Sylvester
Laughingbird Software -
Hi Marc,
No worries! I hope it helps. Let us know in the thread what you do and if certain things help more than others.
I am currently running some tests on articles getting ranked and how to outrank competitors for specific keywords and then seeing if those keywords actually bring revenue. Also some reputation management stuff.
If you have any questions on any of that stuff feel free to message or email me. erick.at.brandsavvi.dot.com
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Erick
-
Wow!
hi there different Erick!
Awesome feedback.
Truly, I very much appreciated the time. I hope it also helps others with the ideas you've put down.I'm going to go over your bullet points and work on my site with those suggestions.
I think you and the other Eric have really it the nail on the head. I used to be #3 for that keyword and it's super frustrating not being on top anymoreThanks again!
Your detail was much appreciated (and I'm going over it all two and three times!)Marc
-
Hi Marc,
Especially if these changes are due to a recent update like you mentioned, it's just guessing but hopefully educated guesses will help for later.
I took a look at your competitors site and I think even though they have no text in the html, they do have:
1. Meta description with synonyms for logo creating
2. Title tag with synonyms for logo creation
3. They are using SKetch, which tells google it's some sort of a design tool
4. Maybe google is also looking at engagement time with the page through their analytics code, I know they say they don't use it, but maybe they do now.
5. Links out to Creative Commons Licensing page, lets them know it is related to something being created and shared and it is a good authority link out.
6. CSS classes are named like: logomaker-crop, logomaker-search ...
7. They actually have a good amount of links as well with 1400+ in MOZ and over 8,000 in AHREFS (look at the root domain: http://logomakr.com/ their www subdomain shows lower amount of links only 30 and 175 respectively)
8. Really high DA nofollow links, could show relationship and authority (You should try to model what they've done to get these no follows).
9. Attribution links from sites (example:http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/pages/the-dorothy-hewett-award-for-an-unpublished-manuscript) that have used their tool: EMK="Logo Maker" URL: http://logomakr.com/
10. 44% of the anchor text linking to this site is: logomakr: free logo design tools and the rest is split between exact match and variations of their URL.As I'm typing this your at 19 for that keyword.
Suggestions:
1. Try to raise your DA your at 36 in comparison to 46 for your competitor.
2. Looks like you have a lot of your backlinks coming from Russia, if thats SAPE see what you can do, could be negatively affecting things, maybe disavow some or clean it up. In comparison your competitor has a diverse profile and his links come in higher proportion from UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia.
3. It looks like recently your referring pages doubled... Could be a flag if those new links are all from #2
4. For your anchor terms, 44% are just: "logo" see if you can change that up especially if you control any of those links.
5. Take advantage of optimized youtube video pointed to your root domain in the description. Make a good video with proper optimization and good content so the engagement time is good. maybe a demo of your tool. Dailymotion.com is also high domain video site that can help you rank. You can also try to rank a video quickly with live youtube streaming https://www.youtube.com/live_dashboard_splashI think the biggest difference for you is that your tool is downloadable and theirs is in-browser. So their engagement will always be much higher. Lower bounce rate. etc... If you can create a tool like theirs with your features that is in-browser it would be a more apples to apples comparison.
Check also if they include links in their tools output to increase their links. So if you use their tool will it have some link to them in the output file, does it automatically link to them on the pages that implement their tool? You should also look at doing that yourself. A lot of tools build links this way and it's a great way to get good leads.
Hope that helps and I apologize if I got too detailed, I like doing research.
Hit me up if you have any questions.
Cheers
Erick (different Eric) -
Hi there Eric.
Nice to meet youInteresting. And thanks for the tips. Forgot about looking at the bottom of a Google search for the 'searches related to' idea. Excellent and I'll do that.
Your points above are all valid, except for my question about the #2 spot
(search for "logo creator" and take a look at #2: logomakr.com)There seems to be no reason why it would jump to the #2 spot for a very competitive keyword. it was at #30 a week or so ago.
There is nothing for Google to read... No page text (can't even see much when viewing the page source html).
I'm still looking into this.
I mean, Google is 100% correct ... www.logomakr.com IS a "logo creator" and its just what somebody would probably want.
But how does Google know this?
Marc
-
Couple of thoughts...
You might have been over-optimized on that one keyword, which would make the jump up after removing seem right. Clean that up to focus on more synonymous terms, so you're not over-optimized on one keyword. That also might explain why the sites ranking ahead of you are doing well despite not having that specific term in the title tag/page copy. If you look at "Searches related to..." at the bottom of the search you'll see many of those keywords appearing in the sites ranking ahead of you. Google doesn't just focus on that one keyword, but also uses synonyms/related terms to help determine what the page is about. Using terms like "logo design software" or "logo design company" may also give users a better idea what the page is about, so they're more likely to click through to that page and trust they're going to get what they wanted. Look at the backlink profiles to see what their anchor text is like. That would also help you determine what kind of keywords other people are using to reference your competitors.
There's a ton of factors at play, but I think the main point is that you'll need to diversify the targets a little more moving forward.
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
-
Great DA but page authority not increasing!
Hey team, I hope you are doing great, I have been working effortlessly to increase the authority of my blog. I have used a number of Moz recommended methods like long-form content, posting frequency, getting references from influencers and great websites. It has all resulted in a good domain authority but no matter what I do, the page authority of my blog isn't increasing. Can you please have a look and guide: https://androidcompare.com/ Kind regards...
Algorithm Updates | | Bsmdi0 -
Google mystery: Website ranks inversely proportional in 2 countries for the main keyword. Any ideas or thoughts?
Hi all, Our website ranking for mail keywords is inversely proportional in the 2 countries (US and India). I mean...if the ranking is improved in one country, it drops in other country and vice versa. The graph looks like exactly something triggered and making this happen at Google. I wonder what might be reasons for this? We have been facing this for more than a year and made number of on-site changes, so I presume if it's something to do with backlinks. Any clue or thoughts on this? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
On-Page Markup: Still a Worthwhile Practice?
So I have a question for the community that hopefully someone can help me with. Previously, whenever I created/worked on a website, when I would create or edit the content, I would bold the keywords, italicize certain items, add internal/external links and generally mark-up the content. More recently, however, I've noticed that both my client and many of their leading competitors have abandoned this practice. Now, it appears that all the text appears as plain text, there are rarely bold or italicized items and there does not seem to be as much emphasis on inserting internal/external links. While I understand the ladder to still be an effective/holistic approach to SEO, I'm wondering why the former (the bold, italicized, text variation) has gone by the wayside. So with that, is adding bold/italicized text still a worthwhile SEO technique and is it something I should continue applying to sites I work on? Please advise.
Algorithm Updates | | maxcarnage0 -
Sudden drop in rankings and indexed pages!
Over the past few days I have noticed some apparent major changes. Before I explain, let me say this: Checking my analytics and WMT: There is an increase in traffic (even via google organic) There is no drop in impressions or clicks There is no drop in indexed pages in GWT Having said that; When I check my indexed pages using site:www.mywebsite.com, I see only 30 results as opposed to the 120K that I was seeing before (it was steadily climbing). The indexed pages have increase 3 fold in the past year, because of the increase in pages, updates, and products on the site. I see a sudden drop in rankings for major keywords that had been steadily rising. For example, I had some major keywords that were on page 7-8, not they are on page 20+ or not at all. Also, the page that used to show in the rankings has changed. I have only done white-hat guest blogging in the past year for link building, on a small scale (maybe 20-30 links in a year). They only other change recently, is that we are: Posting products on Houzz and Pinterest daily adding our site to all local directories (white pages, Yelp, citysearch, etc.) My site got hit by Penguin more than a year ago, but we have done everything right since, and our traffic via organic results has more than doubled since the Penguin release. What the hell is going on? Should I be concerned?
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
Are Keywords Dying?
I'm freelancing in SEO work, looking to make it a full time career, and as a result I'm juggling the prospect of having to pick and choose what area I spend most of my time on when working on client sites. My background is in writing so I always lean towards creating content and engaging people via social media. But the standard is also to optimize page titles and - at a deeper level - descriptions for each page. For larger sites, especially e-commerce with many product pages, this is a daunting task. Is it worth it or is the better strategy to focus the limited time available to content creation? Will page titles, etc. eventually become obsolete anyway?
Algorithm Updates | | Nobody15330770827560 -
On-page Optimization
Hi, I have two campaigns and neither have any statistics for on-page optimization. Am I doing something wrong or how do I make these stats appear? I would like to improve my website. Thank you in advanced for any pointers or shared experience you may give me!
Algorithm Updates | | Pixeltistic0 -
High ranking but low traffic, what gives?
One of our clients is in the top 3 spots on high volume keywords that get 20-70k hits in the US each month (per adWords keyword tool), but their daily traffic is in the low hundreds. What's going on?
Algorithm Updates | | optimalwebinc0 -
Is there a way to pull historical rankings for a keyword?
I have someone who's come to me and said that they have lost all of their organic keyword rankings. They did launch a site redesign a few months back so that could be a reason as to why. But after looking at the site, link profile, etc. It doesn't look like they could have been ranking for the terms they say they were. They have never implemented any SEO on their sites btw. I did not build this site and have not done any SEO, they are coming to me to solve the problem. I did notice in SEM rush that a couple months ago they were ranking organically for more terms (20 in July vs. 5 now), so they did lose some. Is there any way to see what terms they WERE ranking for?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0