Spam affiliate outranking quality site?
-
I purchased a site hotkeyit.com which was making decent revenue without much work (all via PPC or CPM) but then afterwards started looking at the SERPs and realized I was being outranked for the main term, 'starcraft 2 guide/s' by crappy ClickBank sites like starcraft2guide.com and many others. Researching starcraft2guide.com specifically in SEOMoz/Rush/Majestic shows hotkeyit.com as being quite superior in everyway, not to mention it has quite a social following for a small gaming site, yet Google seems to care not.
Can someone please explain what's going on here? It seems like the site was penalized, but there was never any link building done for it aside from word of mouth on forums (this was mentioned beforehand).
Thank you everyone.
-
Yeah, it seems that it may have something to do with the lack of varied linking root domains. I'd do some link building and see what happens. Keep an eye on webmaster tools although it doesn't seem like you should have any penaltys. Just keep at it, check out the SEOmoz guide and you'll see those rankings rise.
Also, don't get stuck on a few keywords. Check out your analytics and see if there is any 'low hanging fruit' that's driving traffic and you may be able to boost your rankings for that.
-
This is the biggest disappointment with Google's rankings though. 70% of the sites above me are not even selling anything, they're just spun content with ClickBank hoplinks and they have terrible usability (even a bot can tell from the coding). Yet they still dominate me with far less of a link profile AND nothing to add to anyone.
And I don't believe it's just the EMD. It must be either something with my site that Google doesn't like (no clue) or they're doing something very tricky. I just wish these things were easy to discover. None of the SEOMoz tools seem to help at all, and cleary you guys, even as professionals, can't make it out =(
I'm being a whiny little bitch, but in this instance I can't help it. Once again, you guys rock.
-
You're welcome.
I also forgot to mention that your site has a very clean layout with a clear call to action. While you may have a hard time being #1 for some of those terms you can never forget the importance of usability and having your customers feel comfortable entering their personal information. Compared to your competition I would feel much better using your site than theirs.
-
I had no idea that keywords in the URL were that powerful. After you and Collin both mention it, I guess it must be a major factor. Seems pretty silly why Google would take that into account though, seeing as sites using EMD are more spammy than branded URLs (at least in my experience). How unfortunate.
Anyway, thank you, Joseph.
-
Some of the sites ranking on the first page are exact match or close to exact match domains which you can't ignore.
I also noticed that your site has a good amount of links but a lot are from the same domains while some of your competitors have a much more varied backlink profile. I'd open up open site explorer and compare your site to the competition, pay special attention to the links/linking root domains. I'd try to build a more diverse backlink profile.
You have a lot of likes, I'd add a google plus button as well, it can't hurt.
Good luck!
-
Thanks, Collin. We already do rank #4 and #1 for training and coaching. I really do appreciate the help.
If anyone really knows, please don't pass up... this is such a blatantly awkward situation that I'd really like to get to the bottom of it. AM sites in general seem to use a lot of blackhat techniques since the products they push are short-lived, but I can't seem to track down anything these sites are doing. They're just... ranking super well for no apparent reason.
-
This is purely anecdotal evidence, so take it with a grain of salt - but I've seen for myself and heard reports of Domain URL factoring in very prominently when it comes to SERP rankings.
That being said, I'm quite the gamer myself... when people search for "guides," I believe they are typically searching for things more along the lines of Walkthroughs and FAQs. What you seem to be offering is more accurately described as a training/coaching service. You can attempt to rank for "guides" if you like, but you'll almost certainly acquire higher quality traffic by focusing on the more relevant keywords of "coaching" &"training" and the like.
Just my 2 cents.
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
-
What to do about one site dominating search results? (multiple pages ranking)?
Anybody have thoughts on dealing with search results where the same site gets listed multiple times? "weebly vs wix" is one example (same site #1-3, repetitive articles, not crazy high authority), but I see this now and then. I know Google likes variety, so it's weird for me to see results like this dominating search results. Thoughts? What gets these sites to take over the top rankings for a specific term? Any way to rise up in this situation, outside of the usual? Any tips on duplicating this kind of success?
Competitive Research | | davidwaring0 -
Outrank sb if PA and DA equal
Hi ! Is it correct to say that if I have the same DA and PA I should outrank a competitor if I do my On-Page SEO right ? Cheers Marc
Competitive Research | | RWW0 -
How on earth is this site ranking so highly?
I'm trying (& struggling) to rank for the keyword property in italy. Yet in the past 5 weeks I've seen this site -- betterpropertyitaly (dot) com -- rocket from about #30 to #2 for the keyword and am trying to figure out why. The obvious is that it's in the domain name, but that can't be the be-all-and-end-all, surely? It's a 2 yr 9 mth old site, so why the sudden spurt? I look in Open Site Explorer and the metrics look pretty weak: Domain Authority: 17 Page Authority: 29 Linking Root Domains: 9 Absolutely zero social shares. Good luck to him and all -- but I'm trying to figure out what he's doing right and I'm not. My site apart, he's beating some pretty big-hitters.
Competitive Research | | Jeepster0 -
Open Site Explorer Twitter and Facebook Links
I was using Open Site Explorer to compare some of my site's links to a competitor and I noticed that my Twitter page is not counting as an incoming link, whereas theirs are. From what I can tell, we have the same kind of setup on my twitter page, listing the domain in the company information... but no luck. Any suggestions on what I may be able to change? For reference: twitter.com/mediamegamall ... I know I need to work on the twitter presence... one thing at a time 🙂
Competitive Research | | Ask_MMM0 -
Why is this site ranking #1?
I've done extensive research into http://www.maggiesottero.com/ and cannot come up to any definitive conclusions as to why this site is ranking #1 for the term "wedding dresses." The page is not optimized for the keyword. **Any thoughts? **
Competitive Research | | craigsmith3330 -
Manta inbound link in OSE - competitor site yes, my site no, why?
Our site has had a link back to our site from Manta for a long time, but it's not appearing in our OSE results. One of our competitors similarly has an inbound link from Manta and that link DOES appear in their OSE results. I'm not certain whether that matters for us. Does it? But in any event, why would the one link appear but not the other? Thanks! Tim
Competitive Research | | tcolling0 -
Keyword based link problem on site
So I think I might have identified an issue with a site that I'm trying to get ranked for a specific keyword but, wanted to get some opinions before I started making some big changes on the site. On my homepage I have the keyword that I would like to be ranked for in the title lets say "Blue Widgets - Company Name', also on the home page I have some descriptions of our services including the keywords. I also have a couple of the keyword based links within in the content, navigation and footer. But these keyword based links all point to another page on the site: blue-widgets.htm. If I really want my home page to rank for the keyword "Blue Widgets' should all of these links point to the home page instead of the sub page? I know there are a great number of other factors that contribute to rankings but looking at my competition, this is something that they seem to be doing. The keyword based links within the content, navigation or footer all point to the homepage. I also have a higher Domain Authority than some of the sites that rank higher than me so I'm not sure if building more links is the answer. Of course I always want to build natural links but these sites don't seem to be doing that either. Any comments, suggestions or input would be greatly appreciated.
Competitive Research | | TRICORSystems0