Home page replaced by subpage in google SERP (good or bad)
-
SInce Panda, We have seen our home page drop from #2 in google.ie serp to page 3 but it has been replaced in the same position @#2 by our relevent sub page for the keyword that we ranked#2 for.
Is this a good or bad thing from and seo point of view and is it better to have deep pages show in serp rather than the homepage of a site and what is the best line of action from here in relation to seo.
Is it best to work on subpage or home page for that keyword and should link building for that phrase be directed towards the subpage or the homepage as the subpage is obviously more relevent in googles eyes for the search term.
It is clear that all areas of the site should be looked at in relation to link building and deep links etc but now that google is obviously looking at relevancy very closely should all campaigns be sectioned into relevent content managed sections and the site likewise and treated on an individual basis.
Any help that you may have would be very welcome.
Paul
-
Many quality websites have deep pages that outrank their homepage. This is actually a natural organic pattern.
In general most homepages can be classified as director pages with clear navigation to content...it is these content pages that are usually linked to.
-
Thank you guys just thought it unusual to see a fall of 3 pages over night for home page. Looking at it in conversion terms it is a positive, thanks
-
this got posted whilst I was writing my long winded version below else I could have just commented on this post with 'what he said'
-
Hey Paul, that is one confusingly worded question
it's really pretty simple though, you want the user to land on the page that best serves the intent of their search. So, to go back to tried and trusted SEO coloured widget example.
- if client searches for widgets we want them to land on the homepage
- if client searches for green widgets we want them to land on the green widgets page
- if client searches for green widgets, we don't want them to land on the homepage as they then have to click through to the widgets page and they may not bother.
Forget about link building, forget about SEO, think about your user and what is best for them and let that colour your actions. If you are looking at this from a link building perspective, then some links to the homepage with green widgets would be a terrible thing but ideally you want these to point to the green widgets page.
Hope that helps, it is an overview as without examples, it is hard but if you have any questions, just fire and ill try to help.
Cheers!
Marcus -
I think the most important thing is that the most relevant page for the keyword is shown. In most cases this is a deeper page than the home page and will usually have a better chance of converting.
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
-
Google live blog schema
Live blog markup was rolled out to a selected group of publishers last year 2015. I'm trying to find out whether it has been released to other publishers yet (we are a news site). Not seeing any updates about it anywhere and wondering how I can find out if/when it will be available. This is the latest I can see which is not much help https://developers.google.com/search/pilot/open/live-blogs. Any insider info would be very much appreciated.
Algorithm Updates | | hjsand2 -
Category Containing a Product searched shows up higher in google then the product page itself?
Hello Moz Wizards, We have recently launched a new eCommerce website www.memoky.com and think we did a pretty good job with the markup structure for feeding the hungry google bot all information available about a the products. However google doesn't like us very much : ( It seems every time you google a product that we carry; the category pages that contain that product will show up, but the product page itself does not. Below are two examples, however this seems to be site-wide which makes me feel like there is an underlying issue that we are missing. Examples
Algorithm Updates | | Memoky
when searched for "Eduardo floor lamp - matt black/matt yellow shade"
Shows ups - http://www.memoky.com/lighting/floor-lamps.html
Does not - http://www.memoky.com/eduardo-floor-lamp-matt-black-matt-yellow-shade.html when searched for "Derrick arm chair - white leather/ walnut"
Shows ups - http://www.memoky.com/living/lounge-chairs.html_
Does not - http://www.memoky.com/derrick-arm-chair-white-leather.html_ that is the pattern for almost all the products on this site. Any thoughts on why this could be the case?0 -
Satisfaction survey on Google search results
Anybody else noticing Google satisfaction surveys on long-tail results? I'm only seeing it when there are no ads... 6071fb3341.png
Algorithm Updates | | Propecta1 -
De-indexed homepage in Google - very confusing.
A website I provide content for has just suffered a de-indexed homepage in Google (not in any of the other search engines) - all the other pages remained indexed as usual. Client asked me what might be the problem and I just couldn't figure it out - no linkbuilding has ever been carried out so clean backlink profile, etc. I just resubmitted it and it's back in its usual place, and has maintained the rankings (and PR) it had before it disappeared a few days ago. I checked WMT and no warnings or issues there. Any idea why this might've happened?
Algorithm Updates | | McTaggart0 -
New feature on the SERPs - anyone know what this is!?
Hey guys, I've just been doing a bit of searching to give the new Penguin update a good going over and came across the following result on the right side of the page. As you can see, it's a link to the site that's sitting at the top of the SERP. At first, however, I thought it was some snazzy AdWords feature. Although, having clicked into the link "20 hours ago", it seems that Google has pulled the snippet from the diy-kitchens.com's Google+ feed. Anyone seen this before? Is it a new thing? Is it only the top result that's able to get a snippet from Google+? 7hA4g49.png
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Google Page Rank?
We have had a quality website for 12 years now, and it seems no matter how many more links we get and how much new content we add daily, we have stayed at PR3 for the past 10 years or so. Our SEOMoz domain authority is 52. We have over 950,000 pages linking to us from 829 unique root domains. Is this in line with PR3 or should we be approaching PR4 soon? We do daily blog posts with all unique, fresh quality content that has not been published elsewhere. We try to do everything with 'white hat' methods, and we are constantly trying to provide genuine content and high quality products, and customer service. How can we improve our PR and how important is PR today?
Algorithm Updates | | applesofgold0 -
Why is a link considered active, but is no longer on the page?
How come links sometimes show up in OSE or Yahoo Site Explorer and then when you go to the page, they're not there anymore? Why is a link indexed or considered active but is no longer on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Do we have a timeline of google, bing updates
I thought it would be handy if we had a timeline with dates of any updates to the algo's.
Algorithm Updates | | AlanMosley
Does one exists here at SEOMoz or elsewhere.
Thanks3