Non-optimised pages ranking higher than optimised homepage
-
I'm a developer working with a dating site and we're having what appear to be unusual ranking behaviour for the keyword "Ukraine Brides".
When searching for "Ukraine Brides" we typically have the top 3 results in Google, however the homepage is almost never ranked #1. Other non-optimised pages appear ahead of it. I believe this is having a negative affect on our conversion rate, so wish to see this resolved.
For instance, if you search here in NZ, the results are typically:
- Login page (/account/login)
- Search page (/search)
- Home page (/)
Similar situation when searching in the US, but typically the top result is the search page.
Is this unusual? We've spent quite a bit of time optimising the homepage, it has more external links, more internal links, better content that targets the keyword, more traffic, etc. Even so, the login and search pages appear higher.
A side note, the average CTR for "Ukraine Brides" is significantly lower than "Ukraine Brides Agency" (20% vs 80% respectively), so I don't think that it's purely a 'brand keyword'.
A few thoughts were:
- The search page is not accessible from the homepage unless you are logged in. Maybe this is causing some sort of linking/seo/ranking issue?
- Re: the login page being higher, perhaps many existing users visit the login page directly from this keyword in order to login straight away so Google pushes this to the top. I think this is less likely because most existing users will be logged in automatically (via cookies "remember me") and the homepage has a login form in anycase
- The site supports multiple languages. Maybe this is causing some canonical issues?
- There was an additional suggestion that we should noindex the login and search pages in order to resolve this ranking issue, but were nervous that we'd lose a large amount of organic clicks if we did this. Google must be doing this for a reason, so we wanted to resolve that underlying reason before dropping the noindex hammer.
The fear is of course that we've done something wrong with our homepage which is causing it to perform poorly and thus these other pages rank higher. The hope would be that if we fixed that, that our rank for other keywords would improve also.
It would be great if we could get some more eyes on this to hopefully confirm we're not doing anything silly, and are just generally after a second opinion.
-
I've attached some data for the bounce rate and time spent. I segmented by New users, as existing users I'm sure would skew the stats.
The Search page wins out on both. As for the freshness of content, the search page wins again, just by the nature of the content, with new members signing up frequently. I don't really trust GA's page speed metrics; from my tests the too appear comparable with a slight edge again towards the Search page.
I suppose if users are visiting the homepage and then realise they cannot get to the homepage, it could contribute to the bounce rate (and then they may click on the Search result listing). Alternatively though, if Google see users typically going to the Search page immediately, is it more likely to rank that higher to cater to that experience?
-
Wow, yeah, this is weird! For what it's worth, your hreflang tags seem fine, so I'd be surprised if there are canonical issues. And Google has indexed your home page.
Here's what I'd dig into: does Google think visitors want to land on your /search/ page before your homepage? I work on a site that uses a search page as a paid and organic search landing page, and it has the best conversion rate of any page on our site. Is it possible that Google thinks your homepage offers a bad user experience, and your /search/ page offers a better one, so it's picking what it thinks is best?
To see if that could be the case, I'd look into:
- What's the bounce rate of the home vs /search/ page?
- What's the time spent on page (if you can measure that properly) of each?
- How long do the pages take to load?
- How fresh is the content on the homepage vs search? (I assume the account page is the most boring.)
If this is the case, you may want to consider letting visitors search, then requiring a registration.
Good luck! And let us know what you find out!
Kristina
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
-
Blog page took over homepage
I don't manage to rank my homepage I am trying to rank my homepage on the product name "Rubbee" in Switzerland https://bit.ly/2S004lL, I have .ch domain and it the homepage appears nowhere in the 1 st 20 pages in Switzerland... whereas a website like this one https://bit.ly/2RYCCVT with zero text appears on the 13 th page. For your info when I put the website online over 2 years ago... my homepage was ranking on the 1 st page but since I created a blog page https://bit.ly/2UnL2aX, the blog page took over and it is now impossible to rank the homepage.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Ranking Page #1 for Keyword without Hypen, Not at all for Keyword with Hyphen
Hi There! So I work in an industry where there are different conventions for referring to, searching on and spelling the industry name. For example, let's pretend there were a variety of different conventions for referring to the SEO industry. So someone could search for S-EO, SEO, sEO, etc. and those would all be accepted and understood means of referring to the industry. If we use the SEO example as a comparison for our industry, the two most common conventions would be S-EO and SEO. Using this example, we rank on the first page for the term "SEO" but do not rank AT ALL for the term "S-EO". We have a high-value piece of content that is targeted in the following way: "S-EO (SEO): The Basics Guide" so it is more targeted at the hyphenated word but does not rank at all for the hyphenated version, whereas it is page one for the non-hyphenated term. As additional pieces of context: -In general, our site is more targeted at the hyphenated term and there are places where we rank in the top spot for both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions. For example, we rank in a top 2 position for both S-EO & SEO software but do not rank at all for the broader "S-EO" term. -There are times when we do appear on page one for the term "S-EO" but it's typically only for a matter or hours or days and then we disappear entirely from the SERPs for that term. We consistently appear for "SEO." -I currently do not believe we are dealing with a penalty of any sort - our link profile is clean and our spam score per Moz is 2 / 17. Any thoughts or ideas as to what is going on here and how we can potentially rank for the term "S-EO?"
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dpayne10 -
Inner pages not ranking well
Hi Guys I'm currently working on a website and scratching my head. It seems certain pages of the website rank absolutely fine. The homepage, certain pages on footer and the primary navigation pages are ranking fine. Pages, however, that sit on the inner navigation (e.g 3rd level navigational pages) - do not rank well at all. Looking in webmaster, it is apparent these are fluctuating in and out of the Google index - sometimes they are there - sometimes not. I fully understand issues with Google penalties but I don't believe this is case as other pages are ranking fine. Link building has been done to these pages but to no effect. We have also increased internal links e.g by putting the pages on the footer - but still nothing. One thing that may impact the ranking is possibly the URL structure The website URLs are all www.Example.com/widgets - even if they sit on the 3rd level of the user navigation. Could this be a reason why? Would it help if 3rd level pages had the URL structure www.Example.com/services/widgets ? If anyone can provide help that would be great!!! thanks, Duncan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CayenneRed890 -
Checking Rankings Again & Again Can Drop Rankings
Is it possible that if i check my google rankings again & again it can drop ranking?Like checking where do my keywords rank every hours rank drop the rankings? Because this indirectly affects the CTR. Might be because of it? No one has faced such an weird thing before.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Subpage ranking for homepage keyword
Hi all, May seem like a simple scenario and I might be missing something, but my subpage seems to be ranking for my main homepage keyword. The subpage PR is 28 and my domain authority is 17, how can I get my main home page to rank instead of the sub page (product page)? I want to stay away from exact match anchor text links, any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SO_UK0 -
Incorrect cached page indexing in Google while correct page indexes intermittently
Hi, we are a South African insurance company. We have a page http://www.miway.co.za/midrivestyle which has a 301 redirect to http://www.miway.co.za/car-insurance. Problem is that the former page is ranking in the index rather than the latter. The latter page does index occasionally in the same position, but rarely. This is primarily for search phrases like "car insurance" and "car insurance quotes". The ranking was knocked down the index with Penquin 2.0. It was not ranking at all but we have managed to recover to 12/13. This abnormally has only been occurring since the recovery. The correct page does index for other search terms like "insurance for car". Your help would be appreciated, thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | miway0 -
Transfer a page that is already ranked from a second to a third domain level
Hi everybody, i have a page well optimized for my keyword it is on a domain with 28 domain authority it is well linked but it isn't enough to rank first Do you think that buy a third level domain with the keyword inside, put the page on-it and re-index it is a good solution? ( by putting a 301 redirect on the previous page of course ) now i'm waiting to be indexed for the new page but nothing appear searching the keyword instead the previous ranked page... thanks Guido
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | guidoboem0 -
How do you transition a keyword rank from a home page to a sub-page on the site?
We're currently ranking #1 for a valuable keyword, but the result on the SERP is our home page. We're creating a new product page focused on this keyword to provide a better user experience and create more relevant content. What is the best way to make a smooth transition to make the product page rank #1 for the keyword instead of the home page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | buildasign0