Google's ranking

analyzing two sites with very different rankings

[allanp73]

In my never ending attempt to understand how Google ranks web sites I decided to look very thoroughly at a #1 site and compare it to mine which is ranked #67 for the same term.

Site A (ranked #1)
Indexed site pages 23
backward links 46 (not one link contains the phrase)
pr 4

dmoz link (doesn't use term but it is listed)
URL text has part of keyword phrase
URL has two hyphens

keyword density total 8%
keyword density title meta 66.66%
keyword density visible text .7%
keyword density linked text 12.5%
keyword density alt tags 31.25%

Promity the phrase appears 3 times once at top and twice at bottom. Term appears in bold, +1 font text.

Site B (ranked #67)
Indexed site pages 192
backward links 70 (every link contains the phrase)
pr 4

dmoz link (listed, though Google doesn't show it yet)
URL text has complete of keyword phrase
URL has 4 hyphens

keyword density total 18.9%
keyword density title meta 40%
keyword density visible text 13%
keyword density linked text 20%
keyword density alt tags 36.36%

Promity the phrase appears 8 through the text. Term appears in H1, bold, +1 font text, and in link text.

To me if content is king, the ranking doesn't make sense. If links and anchor text are important, then the ranking doesn't make sense. If text is important, the rankings don't make sense. If there is something I'm missing, I would love to know what it is.

There are two possiblies that I can see the number of hyphens or where the sites are hosted. Though I know many cases where hyphened sites rank well.
Mine is hosted in Canada is considered a Canadian site, though the term is a US term.

I would love to hear people's comments and suggestions for what could result in this rankign situation. There must be something in Google's algorithm that I have outlooked.
Please help :)

[aspdesigner]

What is the title of these two sites?

The presence and location of your search phrase in your title can make a BIG difference in ranking right now.

Make sure that the entire desired search phrase is at the start of you title, with the words in the same order and contiguous.

[victor]

A few random thoughts....

Is your site fairly new? (you say you are in DMOZ but not Google Directory, so maybe you are less than six months old). If so, your links may be growing fast, but Google has built its index on its last spidering -- nearly six weeks ago.

Check your outgoing links. Any links to bad neighborhoods that might get you a penalty?

Does the domain name have a bad history -- either under your control, or before you bought it? Again, there may be lingering penalties.

Check your outgoing links again. Do they all work? I believe Google will mark down a site that is acting as a broken hub.

[allanp73]

Thanks for the comments.

Site A: title appears like:
word keyword phrase

Site B: title appears like:
keyord phrase word - keyword word keyword

Neither site have broken links and no links to bad neighborhoods.
Site B doesn't have any previous owners and no penalties. However, Site B is a new site and is recovering from a pr drop (from a pr6 to pr4) it experienced from poorly cross linking during it's initial release. However, the cross-links were removed soon after and its pr is showing recovery. First page is pr 4 and secondary pages are pr 4 and all third level pages are pr3.
Remember the sites still have the same pr. Possibly Site B's pr is slightly stronger.

I can show many examples of similar situations where one site should be clearly ahead of another.
I thought this would be an interesting analysis for everyone and would help everyone to achieve a better understanding of how Google ranks web sites.

[Mohamed_E]

> Remember the sites still have the same pr. Possibly Site B's pr is slightly stronger.

Remember that the toolbar PR is truncated (might be rounded but effect the same), and is on a log scale. A PR of 4.9 and one of 4.1 will look the same on the toolbar, but the higher one is, according to many of our most experiemced members, anywhere from 6 to 10 (or more) times higher.

If both sites were in the Google Directory you could combine toolbar and directory PR to get a better approximation. But when all is said and done, Google (probably intentionally) does not give enough PR information to allow meaningful comparisons.

[allanp73]

Agreed... This is why I said that site B probably has slightly higher pr. After reviewing the links that point to both sites.

The DMOZ issue is annoying. I have had sites listed in DMOZ over 5 months ago that still don't appear in Google's directory.

[werty]

It seems to me like the major problem would be in your title tag.

You said #1 is using 66.6% keyword density in the title.
what if you changed yours to 100%?

On one of my sites I use the exact title that I would want people to search for. "pink fuzzy widgets" not "Domain.com - pink fuzzy widgets"

They have been very successful as far as rating high in the serps.

[allanp73]

I thought about this too, but it isn't the source of the problem. The title is fine because I use it to target related terms and don't want to lose these terms too.
Some of the other examples of strange result involve site with only part of a term in the title and weak pr and almost no relevant text, yet manage #1 spot in serps.
Below is such an example:
Site C: (ranking #1)
pr 5
title: doesn't contain full phrase
indexed pages 42
backward links 66 (none contain phrase)
listed in DMOZ (without use for phrase)
text keyword density 0% (has phrase's words but in reverse order and not close proximity)

Site D: (ranking #25)
pr 4
title: appears as phrase - word - part of phrase - word
indexed pages 177
backward links 52 (all contain phrase)
listed in DMOZ (though does not yet show on Google)
text keyword density 30% phrase in H1,link, bold, mixed evenly throughout page, and alt-tags

I think because it is a relatively new site (3 months old) that it's pr still has built up yet.

[aspdesigner]

You might want to try changing your title to just -

keyword phrase

and see what happens. I understand your desire to come up on other searches, and you may still be able to do that without the extra words in the title.

But if you're only coming up on Page 7 for your main search phrase, and the shorter title solves the poblem, you are going to need to start thinking about priorities.