My DA keeps going up, by my rankings keep falling.
-
Hi,
I manage a few clients, but the one that is in reference to this question is a local law firm. They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks. Their domain authority keeps rising, but they continue to lose rankings for tracked keywords. Has anyone else faced a similar situation? Does anyone one know what is causing this or what I can do to combat it?
Thanks,
-
While I do often look at Domain Authority, I see a LOT of cases where DA doesn't tell the whole story. DA is Moz's best replication of PageRank. But, because no one outside of Google knows how they calculate PageRank, it's not always going to be equivalent.
There are a lot more things that could be done for this site, especially in terms of on-page SEO. The home page title tag is "Home | Brand" It's quite important to have some keywords in the title tag. Similarly, take a look at the above the fold content of the home page. I see an image (logo), followed by some navigational buttons and then the most important text on the page says:
Real Experience. Practical Solutions.
When Decisions Matter.Below that are a few buttons that do actually contain some keywords.
My point is that there is very little on your home page that gives Google the context of what you want this site to rank for. I am betting that changing the title tag and writing some above the fold text that concisely explains what the firm offers and also contains a few keywords would make a difference.
Those were just a few things I saw on a quick look. It might be worthwhile to do a thorough site quality audit as a next move. On-site changes can really help move the needle.
-
They have some "category" type pages on their website, such as this one about "family law".
http://www.stockandleader.com/personal-law/family-law
This page only has a yada yada yada paragraphy on it.
These pages would become much stronger in the SERPs for industry category keywords, and a useful starting point for visitors, if all of the blog posts for that legal category were linked to from these pages. These types of pages can serve as gateways to the expertise areas of the firm if they link to all of their related content.
-
Here is the link to the blog: http://www.stockandleader.com/blog.
Actually, we have been advising that they try to write using language that could be understood by people outside of the legal industry - as this is their main target.
I don't think other law firms would ever link to their blog, as lawyers are super competitive and do not want to send users to a different law firm, even if it was 1000 miles away. I used Open Site Explorer to see what links their competitor has, and they have very similar links - local newspapers, magazines, sponsorships, directories. The one core difference that I saw was that their competition was linked as being "local" law firm in completely different states. For example, they are based in PA, but were being linked to as a local law firm in a directory for VT and MN law firms. They are not a national law firm, so this should not be happening.
-
That is quite a bit of blogging. They should have a couple hundred blog posts at that rate. Are these blog posts of high enough quality to attract links from other law firms, law schools, legal sites, etc.? If not, then I would suggest posting less often and with higher qualilty.
-
They have been blogging for years, often 3 - 4 times a month. There have not been many negative backlinks. I just added that information so that you would know that there are not any bad backlinks.
-
Here is some information that might be helpful to those trying to respond....
**They blog on a regular basis... **
How long have they been doing this and what is the rate? If they have been making one post per month for four months, that isn't enough to move the needle. Also, are the posts yada yada yada content or are the good juicy legal stuff that citizens, other law firms or law schools will link to?
we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks.
Where are these coming from? How do you know they are negative and not simple spam?
-
"They blog on a regular basis and we continue to monitor for and delete any negative backlinks" - That would be your issue no doubt. Robgerbot is cleaver but he can't see what links you've disavowed. I've seen a lot of people deleted what they think is bad links but in fact had no problem at all. This means Moz and alike can see them however Google doesn't and thus doesn't discount.
Hope that helps.
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
-
High image rank
Hi everyone I have a question and I hope you can help me or at least introduce some moz post to me.I want to have high rank in google image so I use a descriptive alt text and image title. I used related content and keyword for my pictures but there still some issue should I use the exact keyword in my header and content?and repeat them OVER AND OVER ?can you help me with this issue?
On-Page Optimization | | talaabshode20200 -
Wordpress: Why do the URLs of my posts keep changing to match the posts titles?
I'll try to keep this brief. The URLs of my posts keep snapping back to exactly match their post titles, no matter how often I try to change them. e.g. title: How to Tie Your Shoelaces desired URL: tie-shoelaces BUT actual URL: how-to-tie-your-shoelaces Anyone come across/ resolved this issue before?
On-Page Optimization | | GerardAdlum0 -
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 -
Understanding why our new page doesn't rank. Internal link structure to blame? + understand canonical pages more.
Hi guys. Sorry it's an essay...BUT, i think a lot of you will find this an interesting question. This question is in 2 (related) parts, and I imagine it would be an 'advanced' SEO question. Hoping you guys can help bring some real insight 🙂 Always amazed at the quality for this forum/ community. **Context... ** We had a duplicate content issue caused by this page and it's product permutations, so we placed canonical tags on all the product permutations to solve it. Worked a treat. However, we now have more **product ranges. **We now sell Diaries, Notebooks & Music books, which are clearly different from one another. So...we've placed canonical tags on all the product permutations leading back to the 'parent' theme. In other words, all the diary permutations 'lead back' to the diary page. All the notebooks permutations 'lead back' to the main notebook page. So on and so forth. Make sense so far? Context end..... Issue. Amazingly our Diary page outranks our notebook pagefor the search term 'Design your own Notebook'. The notebook page is well optimised for this search term, and the diary page avoids the word 'notebook' altogether (so no keyword cannibalisation going on). Possible reason? Our Diary page has a vast amount of internal links to it throughout our site. The notebook page has only a few. Could this be the issue? If so, what reading/ blogs/ content/ tools would you recommend to help understand and solve this problem? i.e) Better understanding internal link structure for SEO. 2nd part of the question (in the context of internal linking for SEO). When there are internal links to a page with a conical tag does that 'count' towards the 'parent page', or simply towards that specific page? I really hope that makes sense. If it's clear as mud just shout. Isaac. EDIT: All pages in question have been indexed since we added these changes to the site.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Keeping SEO benefit of an old URL by changing content
We have a blog written in Oct 2012 that accounts for 30-40% of our traffic (174K pageviews per year/80% bounce rate). We are considering updating the content but are concerned that it will fall off the search engine's map if the content is updated to include information that is not exactly the same, but relevant. The URL would be the same and the original blog content would be shortened with a link to the full blog. The new content would include other FDA products under investigation. Here is the blog: http://myadvocates.com/blog/fda-issues-warning-about-so-called-brain-supplement-prevagen
On-Page Optimization | | jgodwin0 -
New site pages are indexed but not ranking for anything
I just built this site for a client http://primedraftarchitecture.com. It went live 3 weeks ago and the pages are getting indexed as per Webmaster Tools. But I'm not seeing it rank for anything. We're adding blog articles regularly and used Moz Local for local links and have been building links in other local directories (probably about 15 so far). Usually I get some rankings, although very low, after just a week or two for new sites. Does anyone see anything glaring that may be causing a problem?
On-Page Optimization | | DonaldS1 -
Www.colourbanners.co.uk/ & colourbanners.co.uk showing up as two seperate URLs - is this going to be dupliacte content issue?
Hi Guys, I have just created a report in Moz and there appears to be 91 duplicate content issues with the site which i need to fix as i think it could be the reason why we are suffering from a penalty. One of the main questions i have is these 3 variations of the URL http://www.colourbanners.co.uk/ http://colourbanners.co.ukhttp://colourbanners.co.uk/Each have links pointing to them. My question is, could this be causing a dupe issue?regardsGerry
On-Page Optimization | | gezzagregz0 -
Yesterday our site had a page rank of 5, today not ranked.
All pages on our site as of today are showing current page is not ranked by google, we have been page rank 5 for about 4 years now, we still seem to be showing in google searches. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
On-Page Optimization | | wcuk0