Hello, this is John Locke, and today I'm answering an interesting question that I
saw an SEO thread, The question goes,
"How can a website with a zero Domain
Rank, that is a fairly new website, be outranking all these other websites with a
far superior link profile, for a medium competition keyword?" Now, I get the
impression that the person who's asking this question is using a SEO tool
to determine the link profile, and the Domain Rank and other
metrics. Keep in mind, these SEO tools use their own proprietary metrics.
Google does not use those metrics. Google uses their own internal metrics to determine
the strength of a site's link profile, and fit that into the algorithm. A couple things
might be going on with this situation. This apparently new site with a
weak link profile is outranking your site, which has a strong link profile and
it's been around for a while. One thing that that could be happening is, they might have
changed their domain name recently. If you're using Moz, which is
a bit notorious for lagging behind having an accurate link
profile of websites, it might not have caught up yet.
Other tools like Ahrefs, they're a bit better about keeping
current with what the link profile is. It's possible that they recently changed their
domain name, and they actually have links that are coming to that site, but your
tool is not showing them. That could be one reason why they're ranking above
you. Number two, and this is a must for any type of site or any type of page
that wants to rank, they probably have a page that is optimized for that keyword.
Meaning the keyword phrase appears in the title, in the URL, it
appears in the description, in the sub-headlines, and in the body text of the
page. Also, that page might better satisfy the
searcher intent. If people are searching for a particular thing, that page
tells them how to find it, gives some information on it, or lets them complete
their task that they're coming there to do. That page is probably optimized in
those particular ways, not only for keywords, but also for search intent,
letting people get to their goal. The third thing that might be happening is,
they might have other links that you don't know about. This is
far less likely (than the other possibilities), but they might have hidden links somewhere that you're not
seeing. That is possible. People do use black hat SEO links, and sometimes they
shield some of the SEO tools from finding them, so that's possible. The
fourth thing that might be happening -- and I don't think that it's true
in your particular situation, but it does happen sometimes -- Google will take a
fairly new site, and maybe it doesn't have a lot of links, but it hasn't been
tested to see how it will do on page one (of search results).
Google usually doesn't push these all the way to number one. Though it usually
will put them in the top ten, on that first page, to see how they do.
Google doesn't know how well a page will
perform until it gives it a push. It will do this from time to time, just taking
a newer site that fits this search query, and they will push it up to see
how it performs.If it performs well in the top ten, it might get pushed
up into the top five. Possibly, eventually to number one. I don't know how long the
time frame was for this particular page to
get to number one. But that is something that could have happened as well.
In any case, it's not just about the links. It's not just about the link
profile. You must have the page optimized in a way to where it's mentioning
the keyword phrase, and letting people get to their
destination So, whether that's buying a product, or hiring someone, or finding information on
that subject. Don't just go by your SEO tools, because
sometimes they have gaps. Certain tools have more gaps than others, but all SEO
tools are trying to approximate what Google is doing. They
are not Google itself. They are trying to figure out what
Google is doing, along with the rest of us SEOs. That is my advice. Look at
what they're doing right on their page. Look for patterns of things that you
might replicate. You might need to add some different content, or more content
to your page. You might need to mention the keyword phrase. You might need to have
better links. You might have a lot more links, but you might need to have more
categorically relevant links. Look at what makes (the top position rank that page). If you can't see what
this number one result has (on-page), look at some of the other ones in your category. See
what types of links they have, or what sites are linking to them. See if you can do
something similar to that. I hope that helps. My name is John Locke. I hope that
explains why sometimes a site that is newer, and seemingly has no links, gets a
push. If you have questions, leave them in comments below. We're here
publishing videos every single day. I would love to see you subscribe. That's
all I have for now. Until next time, peace.