More Traffic From Lower Rankings?
-
I have access to analytics for two different sites that rank for the same keyword. Strangely, the site that ranks on page 3 gets three times as much traffic as the site that ranks on page 1 (rankings according to multiple SEO tools as well as my own browser).
How is this possible?
-
I have access to analytics for two different sites that rank for the same keyword. Strangely, the site that ranks on page 3 gets three times as much traffic as the site that ranks on page 1
Obviously then have other sources of traffic than the keyword you are looking at.
Never assume that there is a single source of traffic. Dive deeper into the analytics. You will probably learn something.
Also, it is possible that the rankings that you are looking at have been composed by google "for your eyes only".
-
As Doug mentions I would look at local search in the first instance. If relevant check out the keyword traffic by country of origin in analytics. Rankings can change quite a lot depending on country, might be that the site on page 3 where you are looking is page one in other places. Also depending on the country/audience your first site might have a much higher percentage of 'not provided' which could be hiding the real number of visits for that keyword.
-
Click through in the SERPS can be affected by a number of things, but a site ranking on page 3 getting more traffic for that keyword than a page 1 site? Wow!
If you're sure the ranking are a true reflection of what everyone else is seeing for that particular keyword... (without knowing the keyword/sites then it's impossible to be specific)
What's the difference in the way the two sites are presented in the SERPS? Do they have equally compelling titles/snippets that invite searchers to take action? What about reputation/trust? Is one of the sites a known name? Does the URL or title look spammy? Is one page heavily shared so appears on people's personalised searches? What about author mark-up?
How well does the search snippet answer the "am I going to find what I'm looking for?" question?
What about searching from mobile / local search? Is one of the sites getting a lift because people searching for the keyword in relation to their known or implied location?
How complicated/niche/specific is the keyword and what is the intent? If the keyword is very specific or in a very niche market then people may be willing to dive deeper through the search results to find the answer they're looking for.
What does google webmaster tools tell you about the average position for the search term for the two sites?
Edit: Meant to ask - what traffic volume are we talking about and what's the difference between the numbers for each site?
-
Hi,
Is the bigger traffic organic from google results based on that keyword? Or do you mean traffic overall?
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
-
Dark Traffic Mystery!
Hey everyone, My team and I have been digging into this problem and can't find an answer - and it turns out this has been an issue for over year. I'll try to explain the best I can, but let me know if you have any questions. My predecessor noticed a non-existent page URL getting traffic in GA. He had the web dev team create a page so he could see where the traffic is coming from. The page has every directive under the sun on it; noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, noodp, noydir, noimageindex, notranslate All of the traffic is (direct) / (none). It gets about 300 visits per day. Avg. time on page is 15:40, bounce rate is 99.6% and it doesn't show up in the funnel. Previous page path is 92% entrance; 8% homepage. Geo is 92% US; then diversified across countries. Browser is predominately Chrome. OS is only Windows, and device is only desktop. I've run this page through a backlink checker, and we get nothing. I've run it through Screaming Frog and it has no internal links pointing to it. I've tried putting quotes around the URL and googling it and we get a few websites, but they're very low authority and it isn't likely that they're sending 300+ visits per day. Also, since all of the traffic is direct, I don't think it's coming from a backlink anyway. This has become a personal quest for several of us, as we really want to figure out where that traffic is coming from. Any thoughts? What am I missing? It's kind of driving me crazy because I can't figure out what I've missed, so if anyone figures this out and is coming to Pubcon in November, I'll buy you a beer!! 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Google Analytics unexplainable traffic spike
Viewing this report **Behaviour > Site content > All pages **with primary dimensions of **Page ** and **Page title **are showing different results for one specific page on our site. We noticed a huge spike in pageviews and entrances to that specific page on our site. The user flow report shows traffic going through and from the page (in high volume) from other pages on the site which suggests that it's not the usual case of spam referrals. When I view the report above by page, I get unrealistic data. Over 600% increase in pageviews and over 900% increase in entrances. When I view by page title however, I get realistic results. Can anyone help shed some light on why these two reports will be different? Anyone else seeing similar issues?
Reporting & Analytics | | OptiBacUK0 -
Looking for a GA developer to block internal traffic and integrate with Snipcart JS API - paid
Hi There, We're looking for someone to help us setup: Blocking internal traffic using a custom dimension/query URL as described here: http://www.simoahava.com/analytics/block-internal-traffic-gtm/ Integrate Google Analytics ecommerce tracking with the Snipcart API as described here: https://snipcart.com/blog/integrating-snipcart-with-google-analytics-ecommerce-tracking Discuss Kiss Metrics and possibly integrate with Snipcart We're a small, 2 person startup so are ideally looking for a freelancer or small firm to help - Any recommendations or pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated. Cheers Ben
Reporting & Analytics | | cmscss0 -
Why is my Domain Authority dropping from 52 to 46 but my Keyword ranking has never been higher?
At the start of August my Domain Authority was 52 but it has fallen to 46 over the course of 8 weeks. At first this was credited to the smaller index that SEOMOZ has taken and when this was certainly in line with our rivals results as well who all suffered a drop. When the index issue was fixed we did see an improvement, back up to 51 at the start of September, pretty much in line with all of our rivals. However our Domain Authority has dropped again and this time it is in complete isolation, none of our rivals have suffered anything like a 3 point drop. Our SEO has never been better with 65% of our keywords ranking in the top 3 and 86% ranking in the top 10. Im wondering what is causing this rapid drop in Domain Authority and what affect, if any, it was have on our future keyword rankings. Thanks, Emmet
Reporting & Analytics | | CertificationEU0 -
Why do I have a lot of direct traffic from MSN and Yahoo with 100% bounce rate?
For MSN I have about 8000 hits of one page and a 100% bounce rate. In the last month I have about 400 hits from Yahoo with a 100% bounce rate. Msn is all different pages, while Yahoo is all the home page. What would cause this?
Reporting & Analytics | | EcommerceSite0 -
Page Optimization score is An A but Rank is dropping
New to company in SEO and they wanted a page to rank high for certain term : knowledge management on this page: http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-management Ran SEO Moz optimizer and did suggested changes. Moved score to A and ranking was on google first page but now it's dropped considerably last 2 months as the bounce rate has gone through the roof. I'm at my wits end and don't want the higher ups on me for the drop. I'm not sure what to try next.
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0 -
Overall site traffic - 3 quick questions
3 things : 1. Does Google factor in overall site traffic in rankings? So for 2 sites, all other things being pretty much equal, the one with higher traffic will be listed higher? 2. Does this logically imply that sites with lower traffic overall face an uphill struggle to be ranked highly??? 3. As an extension to this, would it be true to say that by increasing site traffic, say with Google Adwords or other online or offiline or whatever advertising, that might help get higher SEO rankings??? Thanks so much for your responses. This forum is great!
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0 -
Ranking Testing
At times when I change something on my site it effects my rankings. For my business I care mostly about my rankings in certain locations (not local). How can I see how I am ranking in various locations at a given time? I see several tools out there, but none of them seem to work. For example I recently I added a badge to my site and my ranking dropped a spot locally, but I do not think it did elsewhere. The value of the badge is worth that if it is just local, but if it made me drop a ranking in one of my major markets it would not be worth it.
Reporting & Analytics | | RobDalton0