Competitor Ranking in Positions 1 & 2
-
I have seen an increasing instance of where the same company, one of our main competitors, are ranking in positions 1 and 2 for the same search phrase.
It appears that both the homepage and dedicated service page relevant to the search term are ranking, but surely having them at position 1 & 2 is not something search engines like Google want to encourage?
I have also seen other instances of the same company ranking twice on page 1 but not necessarily in #1 or #2. Is this an anomaly or just something I have to live with?
-
I agree, our main page ranks for our #1 term and we have /products/ pages that do as well.
-
Really appreciate the responses, collectively they have answered my question, The companies in question do have some high quality backlinks and it's not an incredibly competitive market, relatively speaking.
Think its time to start building some content to challenge their backlink portfolio.
-
If the search phrase isn't brand specific, I would assume this is due to relevant backlinks, dang good on-site optimization, and probably a fast loading, content heavy website for both the homepage and the service page. I have seen this before as well and if you were to do some in-depth competitor research on them, I believe you would find that it is more than likely a pretty well optimized website, and they have quality backlinks pointing to both the homepage and service page.
I would do a full analysis on their on-site factors (meta titles, outbound links, H2s, amount of content on both pages, internal linking, etc) and then use Moz Open Site Explorer or Ahrefs for both rankings pages to see what backlinks they have. Use that insight to see if you can, to a degree, duplicate what you see. Once you feel you have duplicated as much as you can, while still keeping the content original to your website, try and out-do them in both helpful, relevant on-page content and quality backlinks they don't have. Each situation is different and I am assuming some things here based on what I've seen in the past with this situation, hope it helps though and best of success!
-
This isn't an anomaly. It occurs when one domain has two pages that Google feels are both relevant enough and strong enough to earn a position on the first page of the SERPs. It used to happen a lot more often but you still see it a lot today - especially in niches that are not extremely competitive or where one site is far more powerful than others for the niche.
When one domain has two pages that are strong enough to earn a position on the first page of the SERPs, the second page will position right below the first and this can result in 1,2 or 2,3 or other consecutive position on the first page. One site occupying three or four positions can be found but are much less common.
Some sites that are strong in their niche can intentionally produce these double listings by publishing two very strong pages that are both optimized for the same keyword. In your situation it is a competitor's interior page and homepage taking the first two positions.
-
Is the search phrase brand specific? I have seen in numerous instances that brand specific phrases will produce more results for a particular brand. Some of these results will include facebook and other listings that are not directly tied into a url but mention the brand.
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
-
Why am i ranking better in canada?
hi, some of my keywords with high volume are ranking on first page in canada, but in the states i am on 3rd pages first result. what factors are contributing this disparity. what can be done here in this case. is it because of my links and tld distribution or some server location thing. what should i do to rank better in the US? i have shared hosting server in singapore.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Can Someone explain why this site ranks #1 and #2? I am confused.
Hi everyone, Here is my problem. This site: https://247ride.com/town-cars/ ranks for bunch of really good keywords. Such as lax car service, car service to lax etc. The keyword does not appear in Title tag, and only partially on meta description. The site's DA is 23 and PA is 22. Less than 29 links overall, and linking domains 8. Why in your opinion Google is ranking this page #1 and #2 for many competitive keywords. I know it's a hard question to ask but any input would be greatly appreciated. I am working really hard to rank for same keywords and so far i am at #11 position. Thanks in advance, Davit
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Davit19851 -
Keyword position history?
Are there any tools out there to see historical positions of keywords for competitors? I haven't been tracking the keywords, just wondered if there is any cached data anywhere?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoman100 -
Our web site lost ranking on google a couple of years ago. We have done lots of work on it but still can not improve our search ranking. Can anyone give us some advise
A couple of years ago the ranking on our site dropped over night. I believe someone working here at the time purchased links about that time. We have been doing lots of work on the site since then to improve it. We can not get our rankings back up on google searches. Can anyone give us some advise about what to do or where to go for some help that we can trust.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CostumeD0 -
What will happen if we 302 a page that is ranking #1 in google for a high traffic term?
We're planning to test something and we want to 302 a page to another page for a period of time. The question is, the original page is ranking #1 for a high traffic term. I want to know what will happen if we do this? Will we lose our rank? Will the traffic remain the same? Ultimately I do not want to lose traffic and I do not want to 301 until it has been properly tested.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maxcdn0 -
Microformats & Microdata
Hi, Does splitting data apart using microformats & Microdata, help Google better understand your content and in turn could be used to increase relevancy? O and does anyone know if it's supported across major browsers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Site #2 beats site #1 in every aspect?
Hey guys, loving SEOMoz so far and will definitely continue my subscription after the free trial. I have a question however, which I am really confused about. When researching my primary keyword, I have found that the second ranked site beats the top site in every single aspect, apart from domain age, which is almost 6 years for the top one and 6 months for the second. When I say every single aspect, I mean everything. More authority for the page and domain, more links, more anchor text links, more authoritive links, more social signals, more relevant links, better domain (although second ranked site is a .net), better MozRank, better MozTrust etc.... I have noticed though, that in the UK SERPs, those sites are switched, so #2 is actually #1. Could it be that the US SERPs just haven't updated yet, or am I missing something completely different.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | darrenspeed1 -
Our site has been up almost 2 months and no rankings yet?
Our site is www.AkinsSeptic.com. We spent a lot of time on the site and have not received any rankings yet. Can you advise as to what we can do to get this site ranked at all. I know it needs a lot of SEO work and some links, however, it should rank mildly due to the low competition of keywords we are using. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormz0