Homepage outranked by inner page for keywords in domain name

[Thaparian]

Hi,

I have seen this effect with lot of my sites over time.

My site's homepage doesn't rank for my "keyword phrase", rather an inner page ranks.

The title for homepage is same as the targeted phrase, also the keywords are present in domain name.

Earlier the homepage was ranking for that "keyword phrase" for a long time in top 20.

But now that "inner page" ranks on 10th page and homepage show up down in serps.

Is this some sort of penalty?

Why does Google consider an inner page of my site more important than the homepage?

The titles of my pages are like :

Keyword1 "keyword phrase"
Keyword2 "keyword phrase"

and so on...the site has around 400-500 pages with titles like this...

Am i using bad titles?

[WiseWebDude]

I have had the same thing recently with only ONE domain. And, funny thing is, they even changed the description under the title, now the description is back right and the homepage still doesn't rank on top for its OWN keywords (used to all the time). None of my OLD sites ever do this, but this is a site that is only about 8 months old. Just started that about 2 weeks or so ago. Google is acting kind of weird on some things lately for sure. But, no, your titles should be just fine on that part...

[minnapple]

There is a reasonble chance it will revert on it's own within three weeks.
If it does not and it is happening to many pages, I would beef up the content on the secondary pages.

[Thaparian]

I just noticed one more thing, if search for

Keyword1 "keyword phrase"

the page that shows up on 11th page is another page with
Keyword2 "keyword phrase"

this is the case with almost all pages not just homepage :(

[Lts95]

If you've tracked your position on other searches, like maybe the site name, see if the homepage is showing up normally on those. If it has taken a tumble on just a handfull of specific searches, and there is no legit reason for the inner pages to rank higher than the home page (ie they're less targeted and have a weaker link profile), then it sounds like your home page may be seen as a bit over optimized for the phrase(s). Take a look at the numerous google penalty threads here.

[Thaparian]

I made changes to titles, they are not in the same format now. Titles are bit longer now, since i read on this forum that long titles perform better.
Also i unoptimized the homepage, i optimized my cms, it gives much better speed now for page loading.
Domain name is like : keyword1keyword2keyword3
I don't even have ranking for my domain name.
I have a .org and a .com site ranks for domain name search.
My problem still exists. (For all pages)

[DukeofErlton]

Maybe it's a penalty from optimizing too far on the homepage, or maybe that inner page has more links pointing to it vs the homepage.

[Thaparian]

Its not the issue with just one inner page, its the issue with all inner pages.

Every time i check the rankings, a different inner page ranks.