Competitor rank
-
Hi
We have been doing SEO on one of our properties for 4 years now. We had a new competitor jump in and is now ranking above us within 6 months. I verified various parameters including link backs/etc. but cannot see as to why Google would rank them above our page despite us following all ethical SEO practices/updating content etc.
Do you guys have an experience/thoughts on this?
- P
-
Hi Parvesh, there could be lots of reasons why I can list a few for you and tell you about my personal experience.
Reasons why a new domain could be outranking a well established domain
1. There site is just plain better, users like it more, it has a higher CTR (click through rating), and could be running a multichannel marketing campaign that is driving users to their site more then others in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Page).
2. The site is using a black hat aggressive link building which provides short term gains at the expensive of long term gains.
3. The new site is actually just a new domain for an old established competitor who is 301 redirecting their old site to the new site (passing all their link juice).
4. The new site has a higher domain authority / page authority. I know this may seem somewhat unlikely but imagine I launch a website tomorrow and my brother at CNN writes an article about it, which gets picked up by MSNBC, FOX, ALJAZEERA, MASHABLE, YAHOO and several other popular sites, my domain authority just went up big time.
Last year we had a competitor obliterate us for some keyword terms during a 4 week stretch of time. Their website was new, their design was poor, and they were clearly paying somebody to do link building for them. Because we had them marked as a competitor here at SEOmoz we were able to view historical data about them, it turns out them went from about 30 in-links to 70,000 in-links around the same time we noticed them killing us in the SERP's. The following month they were off the first page for nearly every single one of those keywords, and we were easily out ranking them once again.
The moral of this is there still are black hat tricks that can get a new site ranked very high very quickly, but it will not last. Maintain focus on the long term goal of being the industry leader, and let the black hats fill up with rabbit droppings.
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
-
Optimise root level page for secondary keyword or try to make second level rank?
My Main keyword ranks no where in the top 100 for any pages in my site. for / I am ranked at number 10 for a great secondary keyword. Really want to get this secondary keywordranking on /secondary-keyword.html , should I focus my main page only on my primary keyord and remove any references to "Secondary Keyword"? What I feel here is that I would be sacrificing my rank for "Secondary Keyword"
On-Page Optimization | | Adamzoz0 -
.htaccess Question and Ranking
I have some basic rules set up in my .htaccess file and just curious as to the implications of them as I seem to have a website ranking very low on Search indexes for no particular reason that I can fathom. My question is a follows I have a htaccess rules set up in my application application that first strips the file suffix and then adds a closing brace for example Rule 1: http://www.domain.com/my_page.php becomes http://www.domain.com/my_page
On-Page Optimization | | ecrmeuro
Rule 2: http://www.domain.com/my_page becomes http://www.domain.com/my_page/ Will this rule expecially Rule 2 effect ranking or will these rule have no adverse affect on the website as my MOZ reports still seem to have pages listed win the Top Pages by PA section without the www? Below is an example of the htacess file. RewriteEngine On Redirect Trailing Slashes... RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /+[^.]+$
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ %{REQUEST_URI}/ [R=301,L] Redirect non-WWW to WWW... RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^contractor-accounts.co.uk [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.contractor-accounts.co.uk/$1 [L,R=301] Handle Front Controller... RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]0 -
Site appears to rank very low
Hi, A site we manage is ranking very low for it's main key phrases. The site is www.moremouse.com. For example for the phrase "orlando vacation rentals" it ranks around page 12 which seems very low considering the DA, PA, links, etc. compared to many sites ranking much much higher. Can anyone see anything obvious that is causing it to rank so low? Thanks Pete
On-Page Optimization | | QbicIS0 -
Why will a Page not rank or improve on a website?
My website is performing well, but I have a couple of popular Brand pages that no matter what I do will not rank organically, they are being indexed, but will just not perform or improve. The rest of the pages throughout the website all seem to be fine, can anyone advise if they have experienced a similar problem or advise why this would happen or even suggest what I should do to fix the problem, we have even gone as far to create a new page and delete the old one, and it still hasn't worked. I have used various tools to test the page and variations of search terms and although it is appearing in Google it is not ranked, although it is ranking and visible in Yahoo and Bing. Any help and advise would be appreciated. Jacqui
On-Page Optimization | | EurekaSolutions0 -
Regarding Ranking.
Hi, Could anyone please advise me on how long would he take to get my website ranked in the top 3 results on first page on google. It's an university's website and close to no university's in Malaysia are doing SEO
On-Page Optimization | | navinan0 -
I have two pages ranking for the same keyword.
The index page and the targeted landing page for that keyword. They have different content, title, meta but I am competing with myself for the main keyword in the industry. What is the best way to fix this? 301 the keyword page to the index page?
On-Page Optimization | | Aftermath_SEO0 -
Finished On Page optimization and slipping in rankings
Just finished on page optimization for a client that was on page 2 for the keyword. Went from an on page score of D to an A. But we are still slipping down the rankings. We were towards to top of page 2 now we are towards the bottom. Is there a time that it takes to change or does the on page not really make a big impact?
On-Page Optimization | | devonkrusich0 -
Rankings
The rankings have been in a pending status for several day. Is there a problem with the software? We are in the middle of our test month and need to be able to evaluate the software to decide if we will continue. Thank you
On-Page Optimization | | Barb1230