4 Steps to Diagnose and Fix Wrong Page Ranking

Originally posted on LinkedIn

Many times I noticed that a website homepage ranks on a particular search term, even though there is another page which is more relevant for that keyword. Before few years, brands and search marketing specialists were not concerned about this, because they were mostly interested to appear in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) but now the scenario has changed. Google is updating their search algorithm frequently and prioritizing the site quality scores like CTR, bounce rate and visitor duration on a page in the search algorithm. So now if an irrelevant page appears in SERPs then it can decrease the CTR and increase the bounce rate, which will lower the site’s quality score and this will impact the keyword position in SERPs. So I thought to create a post on this topic to provide my opinion about why this happens and how we can overcome this issue.

Why This Happens?

This happens only when Google considers that the homepage is much better than the inner page. In other words the keywords and the page theme do not match the users search query which is the main purpose of Google's search algorithm. There are 4 reasons behind this and these reasons are listed below:

1. It may be possible that the relevant page have indexing & crawling or content or link issues. Indexing & crawling means that the page has been blocked for robots. It may be possible that page content is not crawlable by Googlebot. May be all the content is served through JavaScript, or Ajax or by any technique not crawlable and parsable by Google.
2. It may be possible that the website page do not have sufficient content or less amount of unique content or the content on the page not providing enough value to Google to consider the page for SERP ranking.
3. It may be possible that the page do not have enough external and internal links pointing to that page to make it valuable for Google to rank in SERPs.
4. It may be possible that all the above 3 factors are perfect, but the ranking ability is weighed down by the homepage of the website. In other words the website’s homepage talks about the search topic that you would expect to find on the inner page, but that Google is seeing on the homepage and the homepage is also getting a lot of links for it.

How We Can Overcome This Issue? 

Well we cannot instruct Google to rank a particular page for particular search term, but yes we can make some changes to resolve the above mentioned issues and provide a signal to Google to rank the correct page. 

1. Make the inner page crawlable and parsable by Googlebot. Check robots.txt file and robots Meta tag on the page and fix if there is any issue.
2. Check for canonical tag implementation and correct of there is any issue.
3. Check the page content and make sure the copy is accessible to Google.
4. Strengthen the relevant page’s potential ranking signals by following ways:

• Content: Create enough and unique content that provides value to Google to consider the inner page more relevant for search query.
• Internal linking: Check the website pages that are linking to this targeted page and to the other pages within the website. Point the correct links from the correct pages to this targeted page.
• External linking: Check the external links to this targeted page and the other pages of the website. It may be the case that the external links have weighed down everything else. So in this case, you need to contact to the concerned webmasters and point the links to correct page.
• Improve Page Authority: Improve inner pages Page Authority by creating inbound links from the authority websites.

Following the above steps you can solve the issues and get your correct page rank in Google SERPs. Let me know you opinion through comments.

Yahoo Microsoft Search Alliance

Finally Yahoo and Bing search alliance started from today ie 3rd August 2011. Yahoo announced that they are now ready to transition Yahoo! Organic Search Results (non-paid listings found on the main body of the Yahoo!) to Microsoft. The organic search transition will begins on August 3rd 2011 for Yahoo! European properties in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

Following are the screenshots of search result of Yahoo UK and Bing UK for the same keyword "Data Recovery Software":-




You can see that the results are same in both the search engines. Now if you want to get better ranking on Yahoo then only optimize your site for Bing and you will automatically get the same ranking on Yahoo. So just Review the Bing webmaster tools and optimise your website for the Bing crawler, to help ensure your site is prominently listed in both Yahoo! and Bing organic search results.

Also note that Yahoo! is NOT transitioning paid search results at this time, and you should continue managing your Yahoo! Search Marketing account as usual.

For more information please visits the Official site at http://ebm.yahoo-email.com/c/tag/hBONmsVB8WDXMB8cj4cEGWsiOIp/doc.html

Facebook Spam to Untag Yourself in YouTube Video

Today I received a wall post from one of my very close friend and the post was associated with a YouTube video with the message "wtf divakar you should untag yourself in this video". I opened the video but that was not playing and following message was written inside the video:-

Click You Address Bar
Press Ctrl + V
Press Enter

I very much surprised that what is this and also posted comment that this video is not playing.

Again after some time I received another wall post from some other friend with little bit change in massage "WTF!! divakar I can't believe you're in this vid". Again video was not opening and same above massage was showing.

After this I thought that there is something fishy behind this wall post and I guessed that it must be some kind of Spam. I started searching and found that my guess is correct. Many people was attacked this kind of spam which comes with different related messages. So please don't click on any of your wall post having video with any of the following type of massage:-

1. OMG name you should untag yourself in this vid
2. OMG name why are you in this vid
3. hey name you look so stupid in this vid
4. hey name why are you in this vid
5. hey name i can’t believe youre tagged this vid
6. ROTFL name what are you doing in this vid
7. Yo name why are you tagged in this vid
8. Yo name I can’t believe you are tagged in this vid
9. WTF name you should untag yourself in this vid
10. WTF name what are you doing in this vid
11. WTF name you look so stupid in this vid

The main aim of this spam wall post is to get the user click on the Video which actually does not load any video but infects the user as victim and now similar posts will be posted on the victim’s friends wall.

My main motive about this blog post is to aware the user about this spam and I would like to suggest peoples not to click on such type of spam wall post. Also please just report this video as spam and remove this spam from your news feed.

Google Search: now faster than the speed of type

Google becomes more smarter and faster by providing search results before typing of search query. Google have developed 15 new technologies and introduce Google Instant functionality to get the search results faster than speed of typing. You can find more details at following links:-
Google Search: now faster than the speed of type
Google Instant

On-Page SEO Tips for Better Search Engine Optimization

I have faces many challenges while optimization websites on different themes. So as per my experience in the SEO industry I am writing 21 SEO tips for better search engine optimization. These useful search engine optimization tips are:-

1. Website should have clear hierarchical link structure and every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.


2. Keep the links on a particular page to a reasonable number (less than 100).


3. Website should have a sitemap that point important parts of site. If sitemap have more than 100 links break it into separate pages.


4. Always make folder and file names meaningful.


5. Always use hyphens as word separator while making the internal URL of a website.


6. Website should not have canonical domain issue.


7. Try to keep internal linking consistent. For example, don't link to http://www.example.com/page/ and http://www.example.com/page and http://www.example.com/page/index.htm.


8. If site contains dynamic pages try to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.


9. Always use proper anchor text while linking the pages.


10. Avoid hidden text or hidden links on site.


11. Use a meaningful descriptive ALT tags on every images.


12. Website should have original quality and theme related contents. Use the targeted keywords in content and also check about Keyword density, proximity, prominence, stemming.


13. Check for broken links and correct them.


14. Don’t create pages having duplicate contents.


15. Use appropriate header tags on a page and try to take main targeted keyword in H1.


16. Always try to use External CSS.


17. Avoid using java script on a page try to define it in a separate file and call from there.


18. Verify the website in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Set preferred domain and if required set the geographical location.


19. Prepare the XML, txt sitemaps and submit in search engines.


20. All the pages of site should have unique Title and Meta Ttags including the targeted keyword of that page.


21. Frames are very, very bad for SEO. Avoid using them unless really necessary
    .