undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Keyword difficulty and time to rank

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Keyword difficulty and time to rank

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
8
13
2.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • seoanalytics
    seoanalytics last edited by Feb 12, 2018, 10:50 AM

    Hello,

    Is there a correlation between the keyword difficult and the time it takes to rank ?

    In other words let's say I try to rank for  the keyword "seo" and it is going to take 2 years to rank 1 st whereas if I go for "best seo tools in 2018" and it takes just 2 weeks ?

    Thank you,

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • sseopack.org
      sseopack.org last edited by Feb 9, 2021, 3:09 PM Feb 9, 2021, 3:09 PM

      There is no any Specific but you can use my personal formula!

      If Allintitle: = Less then 50 then can rank in 1 month

      Allinurl: = Less then 50 then can rank in 1 month

      If greater then it then you can increase days according to this!

      Thanks

      Regard: James John

      Website: Bows Guide

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,about a year
      • SaeedKhosravi
        SaeedKhosravi last edited by Sep 22, 2019, 2:42 AM Sep 22, 2019, 2:41 AM

        Yes, there is a direct correlation between the keyword difficulty and the time it takes to rank for it. There is also a concept/formula that can predict how difficult it would be to rank for a particular keyword. It is called Keyword Golden Ratio (KGR) and is developed by Doug Cunnington. KGR is calculated by dividing the number of allintitle Google results for a specific keyword by its search volume. If the KGR for a keyword is less than 0.25, it's a low-competitive keyword that you can rank for easily and quickly. Please note that 0.25 is just a rule of thumb and you can select any threshold you think is right for you.

        There is also a nifty tool built for this, called Allintitle Bulk Search tool that calculates the KGR score for many keywords at once: https://allintitle.co
        Hope this helps.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • topic:timeago_earlier,2 years
        • seoanalytics
          seoanalytics last edited by Feb 13, 2018, 12:53 PM Feb 13, 2018, 12:53 PM

          Thank you,

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • JackSaville
            JackSaville last edited by Feb 13, 2018, 12:50 PM Feb 13, 2018, 12:50 PM

            Hi there,

            Sure thing - skip down to page 8 here https://email.semrush.com/acton/attachment/13557/f-0e30/1/-/-/-/-/SEMrush_Ranking_Factors_Study_2_0.pdf

            thanks

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • seoanalytics
              seoanalytics last edited by Feb 13, 2018, 12:44 PM Feb 13, 2018, 12:44 PM

              Hi Espres SEO,

              Thank you for the your reply.

              Can you send me a link that say that traffic is an important ranking factor, I never heard about that.

              Thank you,

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • JackSaville
                JackSaville last edited by Feb 13, 2018, 11:25 AM Feb 13, 2018, 11:25 AM

                Hi seoanalytics,

                In that situation I would try and share the content on social media and in slack communities as much as possible to get the word out. By doing so you increase direct traffic (an important ranking factor) and increase the chances of someone linking to the content externally.

                thanks

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • seoanalytics
                  seoanalytics last edited by Feb 13, 2018, 5:57 AM Feb 13, 2018, 5:57 AM

                  My question:

                  When you have written good content and have a good internal linking structure, what else can you do to rank on high competition keywords (those that have a difficulty of around 50 for example). Just be patient and wait or is there anything else that can be done ?

                  Thank you,

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • seoanalytics
                    seoanalytics last edited by Feb 12, 2018, 2:29 PM Feb 12, 2018, 2:29 PM

                    It means in some way that big companies with strong PA and DA have an advantage on high volume keyword ?

                    Length of content does it mean that you need long content to compete ? or can you compete with better content even though it isn't long ?

                    Thank you,

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • NickW816
                      NickW816 last edited by Feb 26, 2018, 3:46 AM Feb 12, 2018, 1:23 PM

                      EGOL is correct above, keep in mind there are a ton of other factors and your competition online (those ranking highly currently) are more than likely not standing still in an SEO sense (so it is a moving target usually).

                      The lower the competition, the "easier" and supposed "less time" it will take to rank on page 1 of Google is a good rule of thumb. It is also incredibly important to do competitive research on those in the top 3 positions on page 1 to see how long their content is, the quality of it, and the number of quality links it has pointing to it.

                      Nick White
                      SEO Services KC
                      https://seo-kansas-city.com/

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                      • seoanalytics
                        seoanalytics last edited by Feb 12, 2018, 11:44 AM Feb 12, 2018, 11:44 AM

                        Coud it be that content of the same quality takes less time to rank when there is a less competition ?

                        I understand about all the other variable but see that you aren't suppose to ask for links but you content is suppose to attract links it means that once you publish your content you need to wait and for some keyword you might need to wait less and for some more for your content to start being visible.

                        Does strength of a domain really matter because I have seen webpages with almost no PA and DA outrank page with strong PA and DA.

                        It is on long tail queries but still, it seems that content matter a lot those days. Link helps but only make a difference if you are trying to rank on SEO for longer queries it seems to matter less.

                        Thank you,

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Alick300
                          Alick300 last edited by Feb 26, 2018, 3:46 AM Feb 12, 2018, 11:32 AM

                          Hi,

                          It all depends on competition. In order to rank competitive keywords huge effort and time required specially in case of single word keyword.

                          If you search 'SEO' in Google ,42,90,00,000 results showing while searching 'best seo tools in 2018', 39,70,000 results showing.You can see difference is huge that is why 'best seo tools' easy to rank and get less time and efforts.

                          In short competition is directly proportional to time & effort*

                          Thanks

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • EGOL
                            EGOL last edited by Feb 26, 2018, 3:46 AM Feb 12, 2018, 11:27 AM

                            The amount of time that it takes to rank has a lot of variables...  the variables that you have some control over area....

                            A)  the quality of your content

                            B)  the strength of your website

                            C)  your ability to get links into the new page

                            The actions of your visitors are also important.  They can share, they can engage, or they can do one of these or neither.

                            The actions of your competitors are also important.  They can be working on content for similar keywords, they can be working on links to their competing page, or working on links to their entire website.

                            All of this is why SEOs can't guarantee rankings or "time to rank".  But mainly, they don't have control over their competitors.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • 1 / 1
                            1 out of 13
                            • First post
                              1/13
                              Last post

                            Got a burning SEO question?

                            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                            Start my free trial


                            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.

                            • See all categories

                            Related Questions

                            • Iuj873g

                              Is Moz Premium Show Authenticate Keyword Difficulty States???

                              Hi, I am a regular user of Moz premium. I was advised some of my friends about Moz benefits. 4 months ago I found a low competition micro niche longtail keyword and made a website on it. The keyword difficulty was 16 and I was confident that I will rank on the top page. but now after posting 15 articles of that micro niche, I am still ranking on 129 position on Google search results. Can anybody advise me what is the problem with my site. Was the keyword difficulty had manupulated states on authenticative. My site name and https://www.vixpr.com/. Please guide me how I can take further benefits of Moz Premium.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 6, 2021, 4:33 PM | Iuj873g
                              0
                            • AL123al

                              Page rank and menus

                              Hi, My client has a large website and has a navigation with main categories. However, they also have a hamburger type navigation in the top right. If you click it it opens to a massive menu with every category and page visible. Do you know if having a navigation like this bleeds page rank? So if all deep pages are visible from the hamburger navigation this means that page rank is not being conserved to the main categories. If you click a main category in the main navigation (not the hamburger) you can see the sub pages. I think this is the right structure but the client has installed this huge menu to make it easier for people to see what there is. From a technical SEO  is this not bad?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 28, 2018, 5:24 PM | AL123al
                              0
                            • dkeipper

                              Page Rank Worse After Optimization

                              For a long time, we had terrible on page SEO. No keyword targeting, no meta titles or descriptions. Just a brief 2-4 sentence product description and shipping information. Strangely, we weren't ranking too bad. For one product, we were ranking on page 1 of Google for a certain keyword. My goal to reach the top of page 1 would be easy (or so I thought). I have now optimized this page to rank better for the same keyword. I have a 276 word description with detailed specifications and shipping information. I have a strong title and meta description with keywords and modifers. I have also included a video demonstration, additional photos and an PDF of the owners manual. In my eyes, the page is 100% better than it ever was. In the eyes of MOZ, it's better also. I've got an A with the On-Page Grader. Why is this page now ranking on page 8 of Google? What have I done wrong? What can I do to correct it?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 1, 2015, 12:22 PM | dkeipper
                              0
                            • sandeep.clickdesk

                              My website is not ranking for primary keywords in Google

                              I need help regarding some SEO strategy that need to be implemented to my website http://goo.gl/AiOgu1 . My website is a leading live chat product, daily it receives around 2000 unique visitors. Initially the website was impacted by manual link penalty, I cleaned up lot of backlinks, the website revoked from the penalty some where around June'14. Most of the secondary and longtail Keywords started ranking in Google, but unfortunately, it do not rank well for the primary keywords like (live chat, live chat software, helpdesk etc). Since I have done lot of onsite changes and even revamped the content but till now I dont find any improvement. I am unable to understand where I have got structed.
                              can anyone help me out?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 19, 2014, 12:29 PM | sandeep.clickdesk
                              0
                            • RG_SEO

                              Will multiple domains from the same company rank for the same keyword search?

                              I'm trying to convince people that we need good marketing reasons for starting multiple domains, as it will be more difficult to rank multiple sites. Does anyone know if Google actively discourages multiple domains from the same company appearing in the search results for the same keyword? We are creating a separate content website which is related to an existing company website. Would you agree that is best to have these sites on one domain with the content site on a sub-domain perhaps? I'm worried about duplication of effort and cross-keyword targeting in particular. These sites would not have duplicate content.

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Dec 18, 2013, 7:33 PM | RG_SEO
                              0
                            • RickyShockley

                              Ranking for local searches without city specific keywords?

                              Hey guys! I had asked this question a few months ago and now that we are seeing even more implicit information determining search results, I want to ask it again..in two parts. Is is STILL best practice for on-page to add the city name to your titles, h1s, content etc? It seems that this will eventually be an outdated tactic, right? If there is a decent amount of search volume without any city name in the search query (ie. "storefont signs", but no search volume for the phrase when specific cities are added (ie. "storefront signs west palm beach) is it worth trying to rank and optimize for that search term for a company in West Palm Beach? We can assume that if there are 20,000 monthly searches for the non-location specific term that SOME of them would be fairly local, so do we optimize the page without the city name and trust Google to display results with a local intent...therefore showing our client's site in the SERPS when someone searches "sign company" and they are IN West Palm Beach? If there is any confusion, please just ask me to clarify! I think this would be a great WhiteBoard Friday topic for Rand!

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Sep 23, 2013, 4:54 PM | RickyShockley
                              0
                            • Antony_Towle

                              Google Ranking Generally in Germany - Keywords & Umlauts

                              Hi Mozzers, I was hoping i could get some advice/opinions on a website ranking problem i have been working on, in particular one of the pages. This is our German language website which is hosted from Germany and a flaunt German speaking member of staff from our German office moderates the text content of the website for us.Our website seems to get good traffic ,visitor navigation and conversions. One of the keywords i focus building around is Schallpegelmessgerät which is one way of basically saying Sound level meter in German. The keyword uses an umlaut which i cannot use in the URL, but google is picking up and putting into the snippets, but apart from that our on-page optimization is good according to the moz tool. I have been trying to improve our content and we post many blog articles around the topic/keyword but google.de seems to choose not to even display this on the first couple of pages and sometimes ranks our blog articles around the third page. We are even been outranked by some low quality cheap online shop websites some of which with low quality content and low page and domain authorities. I had accepted this but after looking at bing.de and doing a search i find our page in the top 5 results, i understand that google and bing's algorhythms are different but just struggling to get my head around it all. Here is our website & page - http://www.cirrusresearch.de/produkte/schallpegelmessgerat/ Any advice on this situation would be greatly appreciated, thank you very much for reading this James

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 7, 2013, 11:10 AM | Antony_Towle
                              0
                            • CMTM

                              Subdomains for niche related keywords

                              I wanted to know how efficient using a subdomain is, taking in consideration all the updates Google has made lately. I am looking to use a subdomain for a well branded website for a niche specific part of their website. The subdomain will end-up having more than 100 pages. I'd like to see in what cases do you guys recommend using a subdomain? How to get the same benefit out of a subdomain as i am getting from the actual main domain?

                              Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 31, 2011, 3:29 PM | CMTM
                              0

                            Get started with Moz Pro!

                            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                            Start my free trial
                            Products
                            • Moz Pro
                            • Moz Local
                            • Moz API
                            • Moz Data
                            • STAT
                            • Product Updates
                            Moz Solutions
                            • SMB Solutions
                            • Agency Solutions
                            • Enterprise Solutions
                            Free SEO Tools
                            • Domain Authority Checker
                            • Link Explorer
                            • Keyword Explorer
                            • Competitive Research
                            • Brand Authority Checker
                            • Local Citation Checker
                            • MozBar Extension
                            • MozCast
                            Resources
                            • Blog
                            • SEO Learning Center
                            • Help Hub
                            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                            • How-to Guides
                            • Moz Academy
                            • API Docs
                            About Moz
                            • About
                            • Team
                            • Careers
                            • Contact
                            Why Moz
                            • Case Studies
                            • Testimonials
                            Get Involved
                            • Become an Affiliate
                            • MozCon
                            • Webinars
                            • Practical Marketer Series
                            • MozPod
                            Connect with us

                            Contact the Help team

                            Join our newsletter
                            Moz logo
                            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                            • Accessibility
                            • Terms of Use
                            • Privacy

                            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.