Keywords Ranking Varies When Search changes Location/City (Not Google Places)
-
We have a client that are ranking well on most Australian cities for competitive keywords except Google Sydney. If you toggled the cities on the search field when you search for a keyword, their places are almost exactly the same except for Sydney on which they can't be found at all in the Top 100 results. The keywords are not city specific, they are general commonly searched keywords about health.
This is not a Google Places issue. The search result shows the right landing pages of the site for their respective keywords.
Any ideas or experience on this kind of situation.
Much appreciated
Louie
-
Hi Louie,
It seems unlikely to me (which doesn't mean it's impossible) that they have a city-specific penalty. Can't say I have ever heard of that before either, and I would say it would be hard for Google to decide on something like that, manually or algorithmically. The idea that it could be a large number of links from the Sydney region honestly seems like a stretch: that should really just result in a link-based penalty that affects the site nation-wide. Where this could have happened, however, is if someone abused directory links with way too many links using "sydney" in anchor text but I'm sure you'd have seen something like that already. Even then, I haven't heard of that hurting all rankings in that region alone, but rather just for queries including "sydney".
Have you tested this searching from IPs in each region, i.e. I just wanted to make sure it's 100% confirmed that the site does rank well and receives traffic from Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth etc. and that you are not seeing personalised results in those locations and not in Sydney. I know it seems like grasping at straws but it's a really weird case for a non-geo-specific query.
-
HI Jane
Thanks for your interest. There is a slight improvement but maybe just 10%, and the rankings are still fluctuating in Google Sydney. Others are fine. The keywords are Page 1 on Google Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne etc but not showing up at all in Google Sydney. The competition level of all affected keywords are almost the same in other cities I would say.
We have inherited the client fro another SEO provider and the previous SEO work that was done aint pretty. They used to rank well in all Google Cities, but for some reason they have lost their Page 1 rankings only in Google Sydney about 3 months ago when we have inherited it.
Yes they have all their Sydney addresses in the website along with their addresses in other cities. So I am thinking, could they have a penalty in Google Sydney? I haven't seen that before, I would think that if a site is penalized or flagged it's not geo-specific.
Cheers
Louie
-
Hi Louie,
Has there been any improvement to this? If not, could it be possible given the query and the sites that do rank in the Sydney region, that the query is particularly competitive in Sydney as compared to other cities, and that the ranking sites have put any extra effort into that location?
I understand that it isn't a city-specific query, but is the service / product something that might be considered a more profitable query to rank for in Sydney?
Google doesn't support city-specific geo-targeting so it won't be something they've set up incorrectly in Webmaster Tools.
Is there any address or contact information on the client's website that might specifically indicate that they serve areas that are not Sydney?
Cheers,
Jane
-
And second one you are saying when you change location (city) then search any keywords ranking coming different in Google.
-
thats half of the story, you didnt understand the other half that is why your answer is very far from the question
-
I understood your point. You are simply saying your keywords ranking in google except Google Sydney.
-
please make sure you understand the question before you even reply..
-
Thank you, you've got a valid point. I will take that into consideration as I continue to do my evaluation.
-
Hi Louie,
Yes you are correct if you search any keywords in Google then Google prefer location where are you searching from.
For ex. you are searching any keywords in Sydney location then Google mostly prefer to will show you Sydney results.
This is not applicable for all website Yes but applicable for around 70-80% results.
You can open Google.com.au then put your keyword which you are searching then you will look
Web Image Maps Videos News More Search tool
You click Search Tool then you can set your location to find results.
If your client located in Sydney and Google Showing Sydney results i think will be better for your client.
Thanks,
Akhilesh
-
My first guess would be that they have a lot of spammy backlinks with the term Sydney in them. It's really hard to give good advice based on generalized information, but that's something that I would look into. I would look at their backlinks and anchor text with majestic seo and ahrefs.
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
-
Meta Keywords: Do They Hurt Rankings
I know that Google doesn't use meta keywords, but does it hurt to have anything in there? Just wondering if I need to remove all the meta keywords that are on my site, or are they harmless to have. Also, would meta keywords ever be used by an internal search plug-in if we were to install one in the future, or do they generally look at the product title and description for that info?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | b4cab0 -
Why are bit.ly links being indexed and ranked by Google?
I did a quick search for "site:bit.ly" and it returns more than 10 million results. Given that bit.ly links are 301 redirects, why are they being indexed in Google and ranked according to their destination? I'm working on a similar project to bit.ly and I want to make sure I don't run into the same problem.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JDatSB1 -
New Google AdWords Keyword Tool - What Can We Do?
What options do we have for keyword research now that Google is switching from the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to the Keyword Planner??
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alhallinan0 -
Local ranking (keyword) strategies
Hello SEOmozers, I've been working on improving all components of my SEO skills for the past 6 months. I have definitely had some great victories and some gray defeats. My newest challenge is local ranking for a home improvement company. My target is to rank them locally with Google within the top 7 results. I have managed to do so, but only for one keyword "windows and doors CITY". My campaign, in terms of anchor text has a wide variety of long and shortail keywords, I have not concentrated on the above keyword. My question is, how do I go about to rank this website in the local results for all other keywords "windows CITY", "window replacement CITY", etc... What I don't understand is how Google picks up which keywords to rank the website locally for, and which ones to ignore. Any information will be well received. Cheers, Nikster
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thenikster0 -
Rankings tanked after sitewide title tag changes
Hi Guys, One of our clients are a big brand but their brand is a keyword domain. After signing up to seo moz and utilising the recommended changes to the on page seo, something drastic happened. Every page of my clients site appended the site name at the end of the title tag. Example: <title>keyword | keyword 2 | domain name keyword</title> I felt, and also with seomoz reports, that having the main keyword appended to the end of every title tag was far too spammy and as seo moz suggested could possibly have different pages fighting for ranks on that phrase. We decide to remove the domain from the end on all page titles, and since google re cached the site, the rankings have tanked big time. The site is still indexed so thats good but when you consider a single lead is worth over £1000 to my client and with 20-30 leads per month, he isnt too happy. Has anyone experienced this before? My guess is google is re evaluating the rankings to reflect the new title tags, and thus put my clients site out until it's finished updating the rankings etc? Any help? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | glasgowseoguy0 -
Duplicate Content http://www.website.com and http://website.com
I'm getting duplicate content warnings for my site because the same pages are getting crawled twice? Once with http://www.website.com and once with http://website.com. I'm assuming this is a .htaccess problem so I'll post what mine looks like. I think installing WordPress in the root domain changed some of the settings I had before. My main site is primarily in HTML with a blog at http://www.website.com/blog/post-name BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | thirdseo
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress0 -
Google WMT Change of address.
Hey all. I've got two domain names. -rt112media.com -route112media.com http://rt112media.com is my main address. The preferred domain. My Google WMT account has 4 sites listed that I am a verified owner on. 1.)rt112media.com 2.)www.rt112media.com 3.)route112media.com 4.)www.route112media.com I recent changed the address in WMT for route112media.com to have the preferred domain rt112media.com. I did this on Nov 23. It is currently saying their is a request and I can withdrawl. Now I'm needing to set the preferred for www.rt112media.com to be rt112media.com but it will not let me because of the pending route112media.com. The problem is I'm getting a ton of errors under my www.rt112media.com diagnostics. I'm not getting any under rt112media.com but I am thinking it is still effecting my page rank. I have the 301's for all set up as a 301 wildcard to rt112media.com. They all redirect to the preferred domain I wan (rt112media.com.) Suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Route112Media0 -
Multiple Google Places Listings?
Hi everyone. While I have read answers regarding this on Mike Blumenthal's blog, I have not been able to get an exact clarification on having multiple Google Places listings. According to Mike Blumethal, Google accepts multiple listings in the Places area for specific industries. e.g. One listing for a Dental office, one listing for EACH dentist. This could include a separate website for each. If this is the case, how far away are we from having one maxed out business owning muiiple positions in the local listing space in the search engines. specifically Google? I would love a good explanation of what is and isn't allowed to have multiple listings.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dignan991