Category Page Outranks Homepage
-
I have an online party store and when I search for broad industry terms: (party supplies & party decorations) I notice that one of my category pages outranks the homepage. The homepage's Page Authority is better and more external links pointing to the homepage. Is there s technical SEO problem? Why would a category page outrank the homepage?
-
Hi
gardenbeet.com had the same problem about 4 years ago - do not be alarmed. It just means that the internal page has (probably) higher value links than the home page .
At the time I was advised to look at my site architecture to ensure the link juice gets distributed around the website (at least as evenly as the home page would redirect the juice) (not sure if that point is still relevant).
-
It's because both your homepage and that particular category page are targetting the same keywords and are competing with each other in search results. It's rather rare that category outranks the homepage but it's not impossible. This category page has a lot more text content but also images to sub categories etc Google obviously sees it as more relevant to the search queery/keyword.
I would suggest looking at the homepage if it could be reoptimised for other maybe broader keywords to gain some extra benefits.
-
Mark thanks for the response. When I search for (party supplies or party decorations) I see competitor's homepages, not their category pages. Also when I search cheap party supplies then I see the homepage in search results. It sjust makes me think something technical is going wrong. Maybe canonicalization?
-
Homepage authority is almost always going to be better than inner page authority. That just has to do with natural linking behavior.
From Google's perspective, they want to show the most relevant page to the search. Presumably, since the inner page has more of the relevant keywords in its URL, Google is saying it would rather send people there.
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 Canonicalise all filter pages (URL parameters) to the main category
Hi guys, I am working on an e-commerce site that's running in Shopify. I noticed that the filter pages do not have canonical tags pointing to their respective main categories. I doubt that the action needed is to canonicalise each filter pages to the main category as it would take time (there are a lot of filter URLs involved). Do you know any technical coding to do in Shopify to have all filter pages canonicalise to its main category? Keen to hear from you. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brandonegroup0 -
Product page as homepage
Hello, Is it ok that to use the homepage of website as a product page directly where you present all your products on your homepage or can it penalise you to do that ? and in that case, is it better to have a homepage that you don't rank and create a subpage for your product page. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Deep level category pages not ranking well
Hi Guys, I have pages which are 3 levels deep on this site: **https://tinyurl.com/y7bnwkms ** They are barely ranking even though we have optimised them with category based content. Now it seems it might be a internal linking issue. Also noticed ahrefs has not visited the URL yet. So we are in the processing of installing breadcrumbs, building links from level 2 categories to level 3 (which is that url above) plus building links from blog to these level 3 pages. Also links are all in the sitemap. Besides that do you see anything else we can do? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bridhard80 -
Page speed - what do you aim for?
Hi Mozzers - was just looking at website speed and know the google guidelines on average page load time but I'm not sure whether Google issues guidelines on any of the other 4? Do you know of any guidance on domain lookup, server response, server connection or page download? Page Load Time (sec) - I tend to aim for 2 seconds max: http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/your-website-design-should-load-in-4-seconds/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart
Server Response Time: [Google recommends 200ms]: https://developers.google.com/speed/docs/insights/Server Redirection Time (sec) [dependent on number of redirects so probably no guide figure]
Domain Lookup Time (sec)
Server Connection Time (sec)
Page Download Time (sec) Thanks, Luke0 -
Why is Google Ranking the Umbrella Category Page when Searching for Sub-Categories Within that Umbrella Category?
I have an e-commerce client who sells shoes. There is a main page for "Kids" shoes, and then right under it on the top-navigation bar there is a link to "Boys Shoes" and "Girls Shoes." All 3 of these links are on the same level - 1 click off the home page. (And linked to from every page on the website via the top nav bar). All 3 are perfectly optimized for their targeted term. However, when you search for "boys shoes" or "girls shoes" + the brand, the "Kids" page is the one that shows up in the #1 position. There are sitelinks beneath the listing pointing to "Girls" and "Boys." All the other results in Google are resellers of the "brand + girls" or "brand + boys" shoes. So our listing is the only one that's "brand + kids shoes." Our "boys" shoes page and "girls" shoes page don't even rank on the 1st page for "brand + boys shoes" or "brand + girls shoes." The only real difference is that "kids shoes" contains both girls and boys shoes on the page, and then "boys" obviously contains boys' shoes only, "girls" contains girls' shoes only. So in that sense there is more content on the "kids" page. So my question is - WHY is the kids page outranking the boys/girls page? How can we make the boys/girls pages be the ones that show up when people specifically search for boys/girls shoes?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
Help with duplicate pages
Hi there, I have a client who's site I am currently reviewing prior to a SEO campaign. They still work with the development team who built the site (not my company). I have discovered 311 instances of duplicate content within the crawl report. The duplicate content appears to either be 1, 2, or 3 versions of the same pages but with differing URL's. Example: http://www.sitename.com http://sitename.com http://sitename.com/index.php And other pages follow a similar or same pattern. I suppose my question is mainly what could be causing this and how can I fix it? Or, is it something that will have to be fixed by the website developers? Thanks in advance Darren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEODarren0 -
Will using my Homepage as a KW target improve my Inner page Ranking?
Hello your help please! I have 2 KWs that i have targeted Inner pages for and they have got them to page 2 in SERPs, but now its getting difficult to move them up to page 1. Will targeting the home page with a higher authority, for the same terms, help or hinder the inner pages current position? Many Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Stuck on Page 2 - What Would You Do?!?
My site is : http://goo.gl/JgK1e My main keyword is : Plastic Bins i have been going back and forth between page 1 and 2 for this keyword and i was wondering if any of you could provide any guidance as to why i can't get on the top of page 1, and stay there... My site has been around for a while, we believe we have a great user experience, all unique, fresh content, and the lowest prices... I must be missing out on something major if I cannot get a steady page 1 ranking... Any thoughts? Thanks in advance...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Prime850