Ranking Page #1 for Keyword without Hypen, Not at all for Keyword with Hyphen
-
Hi There!
So I work in an industry where there are different conventions for referring to, searching on and spelling the industry name. For example, let's pretend there were a variety of different conventions for referring to the SEO industry. So someone could search for S-EO, SEO, sEO, etc. and those would all be accepted and understood means of referring to the industry.
If we use the SEO example as a comparison for our industry, the two most common conventions would be S-EO and SEO. Using this example, we rank on the first page for the term "SEO" but do not rank AT ALL for the term "S-EO". We have a high-value piece of content that is targeted in the following way: "S-EO (SEO): The Basics Guide" so it is more targeted at the hyphenated word but does not rank at all for the hyphenated version, whereas it is page one for the non-hyphenated term.
As additional pieces of context:
-In general, our site is more targeted at the hyphenated term and there are places where we rank in the top spot for both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions. For example, we rank in a top 2 position for both S-EO & SEO software but do not rank at all for the broader "S-EO" term.
-There are times when we do appear on page one for the term "S-EO" but it's typically only for a matter or hours or days and then we disappear entirely from the SERPs for that term. We consistently appear for "SEO."
-I currently do not believe we are dealing with a penalty of any sort - our link profile is clean and our spam score per Moz is 2 / 17.
Any thoughts or ideas as to what is going on here and how we can potentially rank for the term "S-EO?"
-
It probably shows up when you make a change b/c of the "freshness" factor.
-
Another update on this - I added a rel canonical to the page, making it clear what the true URL that should be appearing in the SERPs is. That URL is the same one that shows up on the SERPs for the version of the keyword without a hyphen.
After doing this, the page appeared briefly on the keyword results with a hyphen and then disappeared entirely again within the same day. It still shows for the keyword with no hyphen.
Often, when I make a change to that page, it will appear in the SERPs for the keyword with a hyphen and then disappear entirely again within hours or days. It consistently appears in the results for no hyphen though, regardless of changes to the page.
-
Thanks, Donna. Yeah, I'm with you, it doesn't make sense to me and doesn't seem logical. Hopefully, someone else has a theory on something we're missing.
Thanks for your time in looking into it!
-
I don't see a logical explanation for the results we're seeing Dan.
Your link profile could be stronger, but if that was the root cause I'd expect to see you on page 2 or 3 of search results for e-discovery and yet (as you've mentioned), you're nowhere to be found.
The only thing I can think of, and I don't think it's the explanation either, is that Google is ranking pages that intend to answer the question "WHAT IS e-discovery" and while your content addresses that, it is more focused on HOW TO.
Maybe someone else will see something we're both missing.
-
Hi Donna,
Yes, in instances where we do appear for "S-EO" it is the same result as for SEO.
And the specific term(s) of concern are "ediscovery" (we are the "E-Discovery (eDiscovery): The Basics Guide" result on page one) vs. e-discovery. Thanks!
-
In those instances where you do appear on page one for S-EO, is the page displayed the same as the one when searching for SEO or is it a different result?
And my question is about your link profile compared to the top 10 competitors, not the competitiveness of the search term. Not sure if I was clear about that.
Why don't you share the term you're talking about your domain. If you 're not comfortable doing that, feel free to private message me.
-
Thanks for the reply, Donna.
I believe we do - going back to the example - the terms S-EO and SEO have almost the exact same competition score in Moz, 47% & 48%, respectively (and they really are the same keyword, anyway), and we rank page #1 for SEO but not at all for S-EO...like, not even on the top 200 pages.
Furthermore, I have seen instances where we do appear on page one for S-EO for hours or even days but eventually go away entirely. This makes me think some sort of penalty but, again, I don't see anything in the link profile to indicate that, there have been no black hat tactics that I'm aware of in the three years I've been there, and there's no manual penalty in GSC.
-
Hi Daniel,
I know you said you believe your link profile is clean, but it is strong enough? That's what I'd research first. Do you have enough high-quality incoming links with keyword relevant anchor text to outrank the competition?
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
-
Keywords and keyword traffic
Hi I am struggling to know what keywords i should be targeting and how the website should be best optimised for said keywords. The website offers bespoke service in the lake district UK a popular tourist destination, The business operates within say a 30 km riadus of the area. So target vistors to the website would specifically be looking for services in the lake district. The trouble is for many targeted keywords for the area are quite low or no data shown. For example: tipi camping lake district, tipi hire lake district, Glamping lake district However nationally keywords for the service have a lot higher traffic i.e. tipi hire or tipi camping, glamping what keywords should be my target? and should I targeting my website for? I don't want to target customers looking for these services outside of the lake district and also by targeting keywords without the term lake district means my competition is greater as i'm competing with the whole of the Uk for serivces It can't provide. please advise thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bengo-990 -
Blog page ranked in a matter of hours, now what to continue climbing ?
Hello, I just published a blog page a few days ago and it currently ranks on 3 rd page for the keyword "loire valley bike tours". Something I haven't managed to do for years with my page that talks about tours in the loire valley. My guess is that I have better content on it. Now my question is : will it continue climbing (if so at what rate) or will it stay there unless I improve my content and get links to it or will google calculate its PR and have it slowly climb over time...without changing anything. Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
How will canonicalizing an https page affect the SERP-ranked http version of that page?
Hey guys, Until recently, my site has been serving traffic over both http and https depending on the user request. Because I only want to serve traffic over https, I've begun redirecting http traffic to https. Reviewing my SEO performance in Moz, I see that for some search terms, an http page shows up on the SERP, and for other search terms, an https page shows. (There aren't really any duplicate pages, just the same pages being served on either http or https.) My question is about canonical tags in this context. Suppose I canonicalize the https version of a page which is already ranked on the SERP as http. Will the link juice from the SERP-ranked http version of that page immediately flow to the now-canonical https version? Will the https version of the page immediately replace the http version on the SERP, with the same ranking? Thank you for your time!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JGRLLC0 -
How to replace an already ranked page with a better, more optimised one?
Hello peeps! I need your collective wisdom to help me deal with something. We manage a website that is doing quite well in its niche, however we have the following problem: Our section landing pages are well established and they rank for a wide range of search terms, including some with a transactional focus. It is obvious that these pages do not cater for users with transactional intent. Our competitors are targeting those transactional keywords with a completely different type of pages, and are winning across the board (annoying but understandable). We have now created a number of pages, which are very similar to the ones that our competitors are using and with an even better on-page SEO score ... WIN! ...well, not so much! Our old section pages are still ranking for the transactional search terms and our new pages are getting very little traction and are having a really slow start. 1. I suspect there is some sort of page cannibalisation going on. How would you address that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Yordan.Vasilev
2. Is there a tried and tested way of telling search engines to rank your new page because it meets the search intent in a better way? Please note that we cannot just redirect the old page to the new one - there are structural and commercial reasons for keeping the old page as it is.
3. Is there anything else that I am missing? Your help is much appreciated.
Thanks
Yordan0 -
Inner pages not ranking well
Hi Guys I'm currently working on a website and scratching my head. It seems certain pages of the website rank absolutely fine. The homepage, certain pages on footer and the primary navigation pages are ranking fine. Pages, however, that sit on the inner navigation (e.g 3rd level navigational pages) - do not rank well at all. Looking in webmaster, it is apparent these are fluctuating in and out of the Google index - sometimes they are there - sometimes not. I fully understand issues with Google penalties but I don't believe this is case as other pages are ranking fine. Link building has been done to these pages but to no effect. We have also increased internal links e.g by putting the pages on the footer - but still nothing. One thing that may impact the ranking is possibly the URL structure The website URLs are all www.Example.com/widgets - even if they sit on the 3rd level of the user navigation. Could this be a reason why? Would it help if 3rd level pages had the URL structure www.Example.com/services/widgets ? If anyone can provide help that would be great!!! thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
How many keywords should each of my pages realistically be targeting?
Hi All, I run a small bank's website and we're currently in the process of organising a site rebuild. Whilst this will be extensive and have many SEO factors to tick off, my concern now is to get a "realistic" number of keywords each of my pages should be targeting. For instance for my car loan page i've done a review on moz's keyword tool and have picked 3 or 4 good keywords - but the problem is there are realistically 7-8 that would suit. Also this is based on Bing's info only. Can anybody point me in the right direction (or have some google confirmed resource they can quote me) Cheers as always 🙂 Dave
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFCU0 -
Can changing dynamic url of over 2000 pages site after a year will change its ranking
Hi- Have built site in joomla The urls are dynamic in nature with over a year - all pages are well indexed and backlinks been built over with these dynamic urls Need to know if i hire an agency to change over dynamic url to static url of these 2000 pages - will it also change all Search engine ranking positions of existing urls Will all the seo effort and backlinks build over 15 months will still hold valid or this will just back to square one due to change of urls is it advisable to get the url changed from dynamic to static one - especially when site is receiving over 75,000 visitors every month Thanks in advance. Look for expert suggestions
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
What happen to ranking if a website go from 1 to 3 weeks Offline ?
I know sound crazy, but things like this can happen. A client have a legal problem whit his domain name and is posible to be offline for 1 week to 3 weeks. The website is in the travel Sector, and have some good rankings on GOO. I did´t find fresh information on Internet about what can happen to rankins in the case of going offline for a week. So... any of yours have been through an experience like this ? Thanks. Matias
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maty0