Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
If you type in mine (3 words) I come in number three and it's been that way for around 9 months now!
To explain my concern:
Position 1: inner page (www.example.com/1/2/3/file)
keywords in file name
3 external links
2 internal links
PR1
Position 2: inner page (www.example.com/1/file)
keywords in file name
0 external links
1 internal link
PR0
Position 3 (Me): root page (www.example.co.uk)
keywords in the domain name
608 external backlinks
621 internal backlinks
PR3
Position 4: inner page (www.example.com/1/2/)
keywords in second folder name
0 external backlinks
1 internal backlink
PR4
My domain/company name uses generic words (but no more than Webmaster World) and as you can tell from the above information, no-one else seems to be targetting those keywords specifically.
Again, it's been this way for nine months (though we did pop up to No.2 late last year for about a week) and as we're ranking at 3 how can I blame OOP, bad neighbourhoods or anything else that would get you filtered to -50/-950? On either side of me is the same stuff, why am I in the middle?
Thanks
Mike
how does it perform in the SERP for your other business terms?
this does sound a bit wierd. presumably all your IBL's also have your kws in them as they're in the domain name?
I get linked to by "our company name", "www.ourcompanyname.co.uk", "OurCompanyName.co.uk" and sometimes things like "what we are selling". It's quite natural backlinking (unlike fake natural link building if you know what I mean!).
how does it perform in the SERP for your other business terms?
I think very well considering the market we are in. A one year old site against companies that are decades old with a stranglehold on newspapers, authority sites and hundreds of affiliates. To rank as we do is quite pleasing! It's just our own name which we should be number 1 for and should have been such within the first three months looking at the other stuff ranking there!
Are you talking about your rankings in the .com index - if so its probably due to your .co.uk domain and if you have a UK IP . If you need to rank in the main index the quick fix could be switching to a US IP
I have a .co.uk and a UK IP address and am talking about rankings on Google .co.uk
Thanks
It's still not necessarily a penalty, you're just being outranked. If you are not #1 for a search that includes the .tld - that could be a sign of a penalty.
I rank No.1 including TLD, and as you can see, there seems to be no obvious reason as to why I'm third instead of first. Surely AGE on it's own cannot trump such a backlink/PR difference?
So again, I do not think this is evidence of a penalty. I understand why you wish the rankings weren't this way right now, but they are.
The number of backlinks can also be pushed aside by the power of a few backlinks from excellent sources.
I completely agree ... but I don't see that happening here. I realise that the Yahoo backlinks tool is not perfect but if you look at my original post:
Position 2: inner page (www.example.com/1/file)
keywords in file name
0 external links
1 internal link
PR0
That ranks above:
root page (www.example.co.uk)
keywords in the domain name
608 external backlinks
621 internal backlinks
PR3
?
i'd actually quite like a look at this one.
How many total results are there for that particular search?
For "our company name" (without quotes) - 356,000,000 and we rank 3rd.
For "our company name" (with quotes) - 96,300 and the top ten is exactly the same as for without quotes.
For "ourcompanyname" (without quotes) - 106,000 and we rank 1st.
And none of the top ten that appear for "our company name" appear in the top ten for "ourcompanyname".
This is the most confusing this I've ever come across. No sign of a penalty anywhere else, and the stuff ranking above us couldn't be further from "better".
I once had same problem. My personal site with 3 words in it was not ranking in top 10 even for "mypersonalsite". What I did was build few more links specifically to the home-page and all is well after 3/4 months.
Not sure if you read my original post. I have 600+ backlinks. They have less than 10 between them.
do they just have one or two superpowerful links as opposed to lots of low quality your side? im thinking likely not, but just checking.
do they just have one or two superpowerful links as opposed to lots of low quality your side?
#2 has no external backlinks according to Yahoo, and no Pagerank according to Google which would suggest Yahoo is right because the page is quite old.
As for #1 - what kind of 3 links could outway 600+? Those links are from prominent sites too such as Reuters, Yahoo, PRWeb, BOTW etc. etc.
Maybe a home page link from Google, Dmoz and No.10 Downing streets home page, but it doesn't have those.
