Whats the best way to see why your competitor is out ranking you?
-
I am trying to rank in the number on position for Part Time CFO. Currently we are in 2nd and 3rd. We have way more quality inbound links then the site in first position, more content etc. How would you go about investigating why they are ahead of us?
-
We have way more quality inbound links then the site in first position, more content etc. How would you go about investigating why they are ahead of us?
It sounds like you have already done the most basic research. If you want to go deeper you can also use the SEOMoz tools such as OpenSiteExplorer to get more data.
Whatever analysis that you use keep in mind that search engines don't reveal everything that they use to determine rankings and the answer "I got my asskicked" has to be accepted in many cases. And, anybody that thinks they can answer the question in every situation is simply fooling themself.
Getting practical. What difference does it make why they are above you? You know what it takes to improve your site and improve its status with the search engines so working on that will be a more productive use of your time.
Once you have clear goals set on what you can do to improve your site, in my opinion, you can then spend zero time trying to figure out why sites rank above you and all of your time working to beat them.
-
Have you been comparing with Open Site Explorer? http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/
I have experienced this myself when a competitor is ranking top with no explaination. It can be very frustrating but there is always something behind a No 1 ranked site.
If you want to send me the url's i will take a look.
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
-
# of links and how it impacts ranking
Hi everyone I was running a competitor analysis in Moz Pro of my site and 3 competitors that are ranked above me. One of the things I noticed is that my # of total links is very high compared to 2 of my competitors(please see attachment). Other seo tools are telling me the same. This is mainly due to a few affiliate sites that have us in their footer. I was wondering if this could impact our ranking if some of these sites have very low domain authority and have thousands of backlinks to our site? I am looking into starting the disavowing process. Walau
Competitive Research | | wdsguy0 -
What is the best website traffic measurement tool?
Now that my beloved Compete.com is done I'd love to know your favorite free website traffic measurement tool. PS, please don't say Alexa! 🙂
Competitive Research | | vinadvisor0 -
Competitor Ranks Top Keywords Without Backlinks
One of my competitors is ranking very well for many different competitive keywords (1k+ searches per month). I'm trying to figure out how in the world he is ranking so well. I've signed up for MozPro and looked at his back-links. He has 1 branded site-wide back-link from a decent blog. He also has 1 contextual back-link from a decent blog. Other than these 2 back-links, the rest are garbage links unlikely to even count for anything (he has maybe 12 of these low quality back-links). My website on the other hand has more than 15 back-links from different (high quality) websites and does not rank anywhere near this competitor. This leads me to believe that either MozPro back-link reporting is inadequate or there is foul-play on the part of my competitor. As far as on-page SEO is considered, his website is far inferior. Therefore, I highly doubt this would play a role. What are some reasonable approaches I can take to better understand the cause of this discrepancy. Clearly the back-link reporting has not revealed any answers.
Competitive Research | | poke10 -
How can I find out the exact match visitors for a competitor's website?
Hi, I'm trying to find a way of finding out the estimated number of exact match visitors that a competitor's website has got. I know that SEO agencies can find this out, and there must be a way of doing this for myself. Thanks
Competitive Research | | MThacker0 -
Webby Rank Tracker That Works
So now that the Moz's rank tracker is down for maintenance, I'm seeking a new Webby rank tacker that WORKS! I need a platform that: is Online. Updates you daily on your client's ranking progress. Notifies you on critical ranking drops. Please don't offer LA's Rank Tracker as in my opinion it's the worst one.
Competitive Research | | Yoav_Vilner0 -
My average visit duration is UP by 110% from 2 minutes to 4 minutes... and my visits (rankings) are down by 6 %.... I would have thought to see more positive ranking affects from that..
Latttteee last night I asked this question Just like the question says, I would have thought that Google would reward a site with more traffic that clearly has a growing level of user engagement. I can't imagine that there are other sites in my niche that are having a longer rate of user engagement... Well, since I can't guarentee that, let's not debate what we don't know.. But shouldn't SOME benefits be seen for a 110% increase? I mean shit, if I could replicate those results with sales, I would really be able to afford higher rankings... Maybe that's how they feel? If I get longer duration, I should get more sales, which means I should be able to afford to pay a professional more to get me to rank higher....? A nice guy Marcus Miller(http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/78416) answered by saying Hey Tyler Google analytics data is not used in anyway in the search ranking algorithm. It's a great thing that your user engagement is up, but it will not benefit you with a better rank on the back of that. That said, if people are enjoying your site more, it should be easier to generate more links and sharing to get more traffic and hopefully boost your standing in search. This is worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg... Hope this helps. Marcus I was still a little unsure though, so I said Solid answer man, I really appriciate the youtube link too, gotta love when an answer is chizzled in stone. I was thinking though.. Google does track data for bouncing back to search for similar queries, and some types of time on site, etc, right? Do you, or does anyone else know the specifics about the data that Google tracks, in relation to how a user interacts with your site?
Competitive Research | | TylerAbernethy0 -
My site is ranked in the top 5 for my keywords, but howcome I'm low in an organic search results for my key words?
Are the other factors such as page rank, Alexa rating and mozRank used to determine where I will show up in search results, over Goggle's key word rank for my key words?
Competitive Research | | allstatetransmission0