Why does my site rank so badly
-
its my turn to ask the interminable question why does my site rank so badly?
site is: marriagerecords.org.uk.
it was #1 for 'marriage records' on google for about 6 months.
then it was 5th to 10th for about 2 months.
now it is nowhere for this phrase and anything else, none of the pages I have written rank for anything.
I have spent hours upon hours researching original content and I have got some great backlinks from sites like wrexham.gov.uk and somerset.gov.uk (some dont show in opensiteexplorer yet).
im guessing im over-optimizing something but i'd love some concrete fixes if anyone could suggest any.
thanks,
tom
-
thank you for the responses. i'll start with reducing the number of instances of marriage.
bounce rate is 40 to 45% which seems OK to me.
-
I agree with bstone81 as a starting point - i.e. reduce the number of instances of 'marriage' for example. We recently did some clean up on one of our primary terms which we'd been link building for but not seen must change. When we reduced the number of instances of our target term we say a huge jump.
-
Spammy keywords might be something to look at. Although you they are not high for "marriage records" it is used twice in your title tag, and the word marriage is used 49 times. I recently did some clean up on some of my pages that were kind of spammy with some keywords and saw an improvement.
So something to consider.
-
Since you just picked up the domain in 02/2012, remember that you picked it up and then all the big algorithm updates hit.
Since you went after an EMD (exact match domain), remember that Google has been decreasing its relevance recently: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-emd-algo-update-early-data
Also, when I visit your site, the colors make it really hard for me to stay on the page. What is your bounce rate? There is a lot of speculation that you'll lose rankings for high bounce rates.
Additionally, the site really functions as a directory. And directories have been getting less and less good rankings (even DMOZ).
-
Hi Tom,
Just had a quick look over your site using the process we'd normally use at my work to assess why a site might be struggling and I think the link building portion of your SEO efforts is where you should start looking.
You're right in thinking you've got some great links on there such as the one you mentioned from wrexham.gov.uk but you're competing against some much stronger sites, the National Archives for example has a DA of 100. With other sites in the top 3 having DA's of 67 & 69 respectively. This is going to make it difficult for one great link to boost you to the top, you need to have several strong links to bolster your current profile. I would suggest breaking it down into targets of linking domains, from OTE i can see you're on 11 so make your first target 50 and so on.
Technically, i can't see any huge errors with your site. Are there any of the Google Algorithim updates which coincide with the drop you've seen in position?
Nigel J Linton
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
-
Help Setting Up 301 Redirects from Coldfusion Site to Wordpress Site.
I have created a new website and need to redirect all of the previous pages to the new one. The old website was built in coldfusion and the new site is built in wordpress. One of the pages I'm trying to redirect is www.norriseal.com/products.cfm to http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/. This is what I have in my .htaccess file <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymlinks
Technical SEO | | MarketHubb
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
Redirect 301 /products.cfm http://norrisealwellmark.com/products/</ifmodule> The result of this redirect is http://norrisealwellmark.com/products.cfm How do I prevent the .cfm from appending to the destination URL?1 -
Why my site is not ranking for any of the keywords?
We have a site for Property management software, we have done everything like set proper Title and descriptions, heading tags, robots tag is also ok, set schema and its ok with Google webmaster too also we are doing Social media promotion. can you please check our website and tell me what is the problem??
Technical SEO | | rootwaysinc0 -
Mobile site backlinks?
Hello, Our mobile site redirects to desktop in a desktop browser and vice versa; however, they are different sites. This said, shouldn't the backlinks for our mobile site be the same as for our desktop site since one redirects to the other. We show no backlinks in my analysis? Any help or insight would be extremely appreciated! Thank you!
Technical SEO | | lfrazer1 -
Seo For Forum Sites
I have forum site.I've opened it 2 months ago.But there is a problem.Therefore my content is unique , my site's keyword ranking constantly changing..Sometimes my site's ranking drops from first 500.After came to 70s. I didn't make any off page seo to my site.What is the problem ?
Technical SEO | | tutarmi0 -
Sudden Ranking Drop
One of my clients websites : http://www.renta-vw.co.za experienced a sudden ranking drop on 24/08/2012 for 2 of the Keyword terms : The 2 terms are : cheap car hire cape town cheap car rental cape town. The site ranked top 3 in Googel.de, Google.com, .co.uk, .nl I'm not sure if it is just a 'Google Dance' or something else at play? I checked Webmaster tools and did not see any messages from Google... This is causing a big loss of revenue for my client and after doing extensive analysis, I'm not the wiser as to what the issue is? Please assit. Thanks, Marnus
Technical SEO | | MarnusW1 -
Ranking in more than one country
Hi, I have a website http://goo.gl/IrJz4 and currently it was ranking well in Google US serps. And now i want to rank well it india too. Does doing more links will bring the results or do i need to do any on page seo ? Please advice me.
Technical SEO | | Dexx220 -
Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible. Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this. houses for rent in XXXXX XXXXX homes for rent (XXXXX equals a city name) The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
Technical SEO | | Robbie8299
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms. Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above. What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this. www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings? My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both. Any help would be great!0 -
Site Hosting Question
We are UK based web designers who have recently been asked to build a website for an Australian Charity. Normally we would host the website in the UK with our current hosting company, but as this is an Australian website with an .au domain I was wondering if it would be better to host it in Australia. If it is better to host it in Australia, I would appreciate if someone could give me the name of a reasonably priced hosting company. Thanks Fraser
Technical SEO | | fraserhannah0