Top ranking with no SEO
-
I ran an SEOMoz keyword difficulty report for the term "interim CFO services" and found that all of the websites that ranked really well for that term have good page authority and domain authority scores and plenty of incoming links.....except 1.
result #5 has a page and domain authority of 1 and no incoming links, however it's ranked #5 in google SERP for this highly competitive term.
see screenshots:
Is this ranking based solely on the domain name being 100% relevant?
Did they just get lucky and hit the google rankings jackpot?
If this is the case, by the same logic I am trying achieve high rankings for the keyword "outsourced accounting firm" and purchased the domain name outsourcedaccountingfirm.com and am not even ranked in the top 50 with google for that keyword. (it's very new though) any feedback on either questions above would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
-
One more example related to exact match domains.
no seo for a 3 years,(about 1000 monthly visitors) added google analytics yesterday to catch 404 , and submited sitemap.
Competitors are way too good for this kind of site, but still. For most competitive keywoards the site is on first SERP.
I think stable number of visitors for a years does the job, supporting such an unfriendly to google robot website.
-
Good answer Syed..I wonder when Google will actually make good on their intention to devalue exact match domains. We have seen this happen in mid-to weak keyword sets.
-
In addition to their exact match domain, their on-page SEO has been almost perfectly optimized for the search term. They get an A on SEOmoz's keyword score card, hitting 4/4 critical, 6/7 high importance, 9/9 medium importance, and 9/11 low importance factors.
Buying and optimizing exact match domains isn't really a good long term strategy as Syed mentions. However if you already have some, I would optimize them as landing pages for the term, with the call to action being to visit your actual website. On the other hand, that effort is probably better spent optimizing a page on your main domain for the term.
-
Fortunately or unfortunately Google still gives pretty good weight to exact match domains and for the search query you pointed you I think its definitely possible that the domain is what got it the high positions.
The #5 ranking site is:
interimcfoservices.net - registered 2 years, not many links and not much authority.However, Google is reducing the authority of exact match domains so I wouldn't go out my way and invest in such domains as it is unlikely to benefit in SEO in the long run.
What many do not consider or cannot calculate is the number of visitrs/ potential clients lost due to to having such a keywordy" domains that not only appear unprofessional but are very difficult to remember.
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
-
Unsolved Mobile Rankings for me and competitors disappear in Moz but still ranking.
Hi, I'm trying to create an SEO report for my client however their mobile rankings have completely disappeared for Google Mobile rankings. Competitors rankings have disappeared as well. Could this be a Moz configuration issue?
Moz Pro | | baddjuju0 -
Rankings
Hi! I'm working on this site from 3-4 months I have done everything but still i did not ranked it, Can you please help me!
Moz Pro | | ahmad030001 -
How long do changes in title tags take to affect SEO?
This is kind of a loaded question. I'm completely new to SEO. I think my boss signed up for Moz Pro sometime in February and started adding data to our Ecommerce site to help with rankings. Sometime before this, I changed some of the title tags on the site (trying to help with organic search and CTR). I did not do a site wide change.... just changed maybe 10-20 (just a guess). I did it with keywords in mind but did not make note of when I did it. I didn't really know better at the time, and I did not have access to Google Analytics or Moz Pro. I was looking through the ranking data/graph for February and March. It won't let me look before February 29th (so that's why I think my boss started the Mos Pro subscription around at that time). On that day it said we ranked 12 keywords in the 1-3 spot, and then the following week (march 7) it went down to 6. I don't think or know if any major site changes were implemented, so I'm not sure why that happened and if it has anything to do with my title tag changes I did maybe a week or two before (again I am not sure when I did this unfortunately). Since then the keyword ranking numbers stayed about the same with organic traffic slowly going down (it could be because we are getting out of season for our industry though). The second week of March the site was upgraded and since then the menu has been completely changed around. Last week I did a site wide title tag change. So the minor changes I made in February are no longer in effect anyway. I added more keywords to Moz earlier this week and the number for 1-3 spot keywords went up from 6 to 20. It also says my ranking moved up 4 keywords and down 13 keywords. Anyway, I am wondering how seriously I should take these changes and if I'm damaging the site. I am new to Moz Pro also so all the data you can access is kind of confusing/overwhelming.
Moz Pro | | AliMac260 -
SEO Help in LA
Hi All- We're new to the MOZ community and plan to use the tools to help our site. We sell graphic design retail products globally. We're looking for a recommendation for a MOZ pro in Los Angeles (ideally) to help us build out our campaign(s) and get us started with the MOZ tools. Any of you in LA? Any of you have a rec for a great resource close to us? Thanks so much, Scott
Moz Pro | | freshs0 -
How to make a best SEO strategy
Hi I want to make a seo strategy for website. what things I need and how to make is there any tool?
Moz Pro | | Kabooter0 -
Why does SEO Moz say we are ranked lower than appears on Google Searches?
We are currently ranked 18th for the Sydney Vet keyword in SEO Moz ranking tools, however in organic Google search we are ranked third. This search was conducted without Googles personalised results feature. Is this just an error? Or does it have something to do with Google Places not being counted in SEO Moz ranking tools? Any help would be much appreciated.
Moz Pro | | Peter.Huxley590 -
About the rankings report in the Pro Dashboard, does it track the ranking of every page on a root domain, or just the home page or whichever page you set up the campaign with?
I noticed that one of the pages on my root domain has a #5 rank for a keyword, yet the ranking report says that there are no results in the top 50. So I am assuming it is only tracking the home page. That is one thing I liked about the Rank Tracker, that it would find any page that was ranking on a root domain. Thanks, Lara
Moz Pro | | larahill0 -
Are the Ranking Changes on SEOmoz ranking reports weekly or life of the keyword?
I am referring to the area where it says ranking changes and where it has a green and a red arrow for improved and declined.
Moz Pro | | JGar-2203710