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.
Posts vs Pages and Rankings Differ Greatly
-
I use wordpress for most of my sites and generally have a post 'news' section. What I've noticed is that just about every time a post will always rank much higher and much faster than a 'page'.
As long as I don't let it get buried in the news archives it continues to rank well, better than if I were to create a 'page'.
Is there any sort of reason this might occur? I'd like to be able to just create 'pages' but at this point in time it makes no sense.
-
Lots of my news posts were announcements of a much more detailed article that was posted on a "page" of my site. Because my blog got eight to ten posts per day the post pages would be quickly buried deep in the blog. The article pages were evergreen content. So, I would redirect those posts to the article page. I thought that it helped rankings.
I don't consider it blackhat because the newsy nature of the posts made them of "temporary value". We deleted and redirected thousands of post per year.
-
Right. I was just thinking and I don't know if this is blackhat but because the news posts always rank better than pages, I'm going to test 301 redirecting a news post to a new page and see what happens.
Normally I would just leave it be, but I would like to set up navigational columns within these posts and can not do so because of their structure.
Basically: Make a news post => let it rank for a week => 301 it to its permanent 'page' home.
This is not something I would normally do except for somewhat aged sites where not much new static content is added...
-
Up until about six months ago I had a blog that was focused on news content. The blog got several posts per day of very fresh news. New posts on that blog would be indexed within moments and land on the first page of google - sometimes in difficult SERPs. The rankings would stick for a while - not more than 24 to 48 hours and then quickly slip down the SERPs and disappear.
My guess is that google recognized the "newsy" nature of that blog (lots of queries with "news" as the keyword) and would give that blog short-term good rankings for queries that were getting a surge in volume. Again, that is a guess. But I saw the same treatment that you described.
-
EGOL - Any way to tell google that for the 'pages'.
Or, do they just categorize 'posts' to deserve this and rank higher even if they don't deserve the freshness/news boost? -
This could be cause by "query deserves freshness".
-
Hi guys, thanks for the input.
Sean - The url structure is the same, except for it is in a /news/ folder and I tend to leave the path the same as the page title (for whatever reason that actually helps it even if its long). But not using any time sensitive permalinks on any of the sites.
Sha - I definitely hear what you're saying, when we are the first to post about something it definitely continues to rank highly even after the competition comes in. The thing is, we could put up a 'page' and it wouldn't.
Just seems to make no sense how google treats posts vs pages whether they're in G news or not. I haven't tried it, but I'm pretty sure I could just post a 'post' with no content and it would rank good whereas a 'page' wouldn't get indexed likely.
-
Hi GYMSN,
The most obvious explanation would be the content itself.
If you are following the general idea that pages are for "evergreen" content and posts are for "news", then it follows that the content in your posts tends to be much more topical than that in your pages.
If the content happens to also be timely (appears before others), fresh (up-to-date) and well written/good quality, then it should rank well and may even have a little potential for virality if very topical.
This would easily explain a significant difference in rankings.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
How are your permalinks setup? Posts typically have a dated url structure which could add to their freshness for the site. It is also argued one of the things you should do with post permalinks is move away from that url structure if you want your post urls to rank for a period of time.
Outside of that it really has to do with the site. Are posts given any better visibility from an internal linking standpoint? Are their technical aspects different? title tags, h1 tags etc?
You need to write out every different aspect down and start thinking of what it can be.
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
-
Strategies for Enhancing Lead Generation from Blog Posts
Hello Moz Community, I've been running a blog ( www[dot]arrify[dot]com ) for a while, focused on Salesforce. I'm looking to enhance my lead-generation efforts through my blog content. I would appreciate insights and strategies on the following: SEO Best Practices: How can I optimize my blog posts for better search engine visibility to attract more potential leads? Content Engagement: What types of content (e.g., infographics, videos, in-depth guides) have been most effective for engaging readers and encouraging them to provide their contact information? CTA Placement: Where is the most effective placement for calls-to-action within a blog post to maximize lead capture without detracting from user experience? Lead Capture Forms: Are there any recommended practices for designing lead capture forms that encourage sign-ups? Any specific examples or case studies would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help!
Content Development | | Kritikgarg0 -
Reusing content on different ccTLDs
We have a client with many international locations, each of which has their own ccTLD domain and website. Eg company-name.com, company-name.com.au, company-name.co.uk, company-name.fr, etc. Each domain/website only targets their own country, and the SEO aim is for each site to only rank well within their own country. We work for an individual country's operations, and the international head office wants to re-use our content on other countries' websites. While there would likely be some optimsation of the content for each region, there may be cases where it is re-used identically. We are concerned that this will cause duplicate content issues. I've read that the separate ccTLDs should indicate to search engines that content is aimed at the different locations - is this sufficient or should we be doing anything extra to avoid duplicate content penalties? Or should we argue that they simply must not do this at all and develop unique content for each? Thanks Julian
Content Development | | Bc.agency0 -
How do I fix a broken link to a product category page in wordpress?
We are building a new site currently at http://67.222.109.48/~cheapnan/ I started doing some SEO after the developer I hired failed to do it even though it was in the agreement. I did our old site so I should be able to do this but I am new to wordpress. Now when i go to the products tab at the top of the page the first 2 have broken links, I checked the rest and there are 3 total that I need to fix. I am unsure how to access the navigation so I can fix the links. Please tell me where to look.
Content Development | | cheaptubes0 -
Recommendations on the URL Structure When Posting Blogs
Sites are adopting different URL structures for posting blogs (examples below). Quicksprout ( www.domain.com/dateposted/blogposttitle) Moz (www.domain.com/blog/blogposttitle) SEO Book (www.domain.com/blogposttitle) What do you recommend?
Content Development | | SEO5Team0 -
Does every keyword need its own landing page?
So we're doing a bunch of keyword research. We've identified the big traffic, higher competition keywords and we've identified tons (thousands) of long-tail keywords that would be appropriate. What I'm wondering is: does every keyword need its own landing page (or content page)? Obviously, we'll be building content for all the primary keywords we're targeting. I'm less mystified about that. What I'm more confused about is what to do about the long tail keywords. For there to be any measurable traffic increase, we need to rank well for thousands of long tail keywords. But it's just not realistic to create thousands of quality content pieces to target each of these long tail keywords individually. So how do you go about ranking for large numbers of long tail keywords? I saw somebody post about using an FAQ page to target multiple long tail keywords which makes sense but even with that I'm not going to have a thousand questions. How does one go after large volumes of long tail keywords? Thanks, --eric
Content Development | | EricOliver0 -
Should I publish several blog posts at once or stagger?
I have several blog posts that I want to publish (40 or so). For freshness is it better to stagger their publication over several months or is it fine to publish them all at the same time. The comments are closed.
Content Development | | AndreB0 -
How many pages is too many to add to a site at one time?
I have quite a bit of excellent content articles at my disposal and we would like to increase the number of pages on our site. I could, theoretically add 100's of pages at a time. Does anyone have a good sense of how much content added to a sight in mass looks bad to Google? My plan is to add approximately 50 pages a week to our site, which already has 4000 pages of content. This is relevant content, since we are a custom writing service and all topics are covered. Our content is what gives us great organic hits and orders. However, I would like to add more than 50 a week...how many is too many? Thanks and I appreciate thoughts and feedback! Karen
Content Development | | eworld0 -
Simple question: How many words optimal for blog posts
Hello, We're adding a blog to one of our sites. How many words should be in a blog post for it to be optimal for the search engines? If it varies from industry to industry, please give a couple of examples. We were going to do 500 words but that seems a bit long. Thanks!
Content Development | | BobGW0