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
-
Length for ranking, is it keyword dependant ?
Is the time it takes to rank keyword dependant ? in other word does it take more time for a page to rank on a keyword that has 5000 request a month than for a page to rank on a keyword that has 50 requests a month ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics1 -
Prioritise a page in Google/why is a well-optimised page not ranking
Hello I'm new to Moz Forums and was wondering if anyone out there could help with a query. My client has an ecommerce site selling a range of pet products, most of which have multiple items in the range for difference size animals i.e. [Product name] for small dog
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LauraSorrelle
[Product name] for medium dog
[Product name] for large dog
[Product name] for extra large dog I've got some really great rankings (top 3) for many keyword searches such as
'[product name] for dogs'
'[product name]' But these rankings are for individual product pages, meaning the user is taken to a small dog product page when they might have a large dog or visa versa. I felt it would be better for the users (and for conversions and bounce rates), if there was a group page which showed all products in the range which I could target keywords '[product name]', '[product name] for dogs'. The page would link through the the individual product pages. I created some group pages in autumn last year to trial this and, although they are well-optimised (score of 98 on Moz's optimisation tool), they are not ranking well. They are indexed, but way down the SERPs. The same group page format has been used for the PPC campaign and the difference to the retention/conversion of visitors is significant. Why are my group pages not ranking? Is it because my client's site already has good rankings for the target term and Google does not want to show another page of the site and muddy results?
Is there a way to prioritise the group page in Google's eyes? Or bring it to Google's attention? Any suggestions/advice welcome. Thanks in advance Laura0 -
IP Address location v Server Location Penguin 4/Possum
Hi All, Our hosting provider have their IP address range in Melbourne but offers servers in Sydney or Melbourne.. If we were to take a server in Sydney and an IP address from their Melbourne range (only IP range offered) will the new localisation updates to the Penguin/Possum Algorithms serve less up to our clients in Sydney thinking we are located in Melbourne? Sorry if im confusing.. I know I am 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CFCU1 -
URL Errors for SmartPhone in Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools
Howdy all, In recent weeks I have seen a steady increase in the number of smartphone related url errors on Googles Search Console (formerly webmaster tools). THe crawler appears to be searching for a /m/ or /mobile/ directory within the URLs. Why is it doing this? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Unfortunately this is for an unresponsive site, would setting the viewport help stop the issue for know until my new responsive site is launched shortly. Cheers fello Mozzers 🙂 Tim NDh1RNs
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TimHolmes1 -
Google Keyword Planner tool is not correct
Hi All, I know you are all know about Google keyword planner tool. As i know its shows most keywords searched totally wrong. One of the keyword searches less than (<10) but i got 20 exact keyword hits in only one business day and one of the keyword shows more then 10 K searches give us only 3-4 hits in one day.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dotlineseo0 -
Weird Page switch for a keyword in Google Rankings
Over this past weekend Google switched the page which usually showed in search results for keyword benchmarking. It went from from http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking to http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking-portal/osb. Also on Google the Rankings for the keyword 'benchmarking' sank from 15 to 47 for http://www.apqc.org/benchmarking Just looking for some theories or ideas or anyone that has had this happen to them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseninja0 -
Cannot Increase Ranking For a Keyword Phrase
I've been working on the keyword phrase, "Niceville Assisted Living" for the website: http://nicevilleassistedliving.com and my increase in rankings has pretty much stalled. When I first started working on this website, a lot of the content was duplicated (which we took care of by plugging in unique content), there were locations listed on the homepage that were throwing my rankings off, I've created blog posts each week (we've even tried posting one post every day for a week), added the Facebook feed to the homepage, corrected errors in the theme, and I'm trying to get a resources page built. I know content is a very, very large part of SEO.. but it seems like the content I am plugging in isn't helping. There aren't any errors in Webmaster Tools and my keyword density is fairly close to the website ranking #1. I think my biggest problem is backlinks. Other websites have quite a few whereas the website I'm working on doesn't have any (I'm working on that, but the number I have doesn't compare to the websites ranking in the top three). I'm stumped as to what to do next. Does anyone have suggestions to improve the ranking for this keyword phrase?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReviveMedia0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page for the targeted keyword
I have two examples below where we want it to rank for the targeted page but google picked another page to rank instead. This is happening a lot on this site I just recently started to work on. Example 1 Googles Choice for key word Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/cl/50/Tires-and-Wheels What we want Google to choice for Motorcycle Tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/49/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Other pages about Motorcycle tires: http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/d/12/Motorcycle-Tires We even used the rel="canonical" for this url to point to our target page. http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/50/-/181/Motorcycle-Tires Example 2 ATV Tires We want this page to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/c/43/81/165/ATV-Tires however google has decided to rank http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/43/81/165/723/ATV-Tires-All that is acutally one folder under where we want it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DoRM0