Why do some pages rank and not others?

[epmaniac]

i have a very successful site, and i have identified a NICHE (very unique one) which i used to completely dominate before i made some changes and messed up the on page seo.

I have tried to revert back the changes but since then i have noticed that, there is a tendency that some pages rank and some dont,....... although the page which doesnt rank hardly has any worthy competition available but still the page doesnt rank, meanwhile similar pages in the niche rank on 1st page for the respective keyword........

could anybody help me with why would a page rank in its niche while the other wouldn't?

[tedster]

There are certainly some mysteries in the rankings - and anyone who pretends to have a foolproof perfect formula for how Google works is pushing snake oil.

One of the issues may be how you are defining "competition". It can be an eye-opener to study those pages that do rank for the query phrase you have your eye on. One important factor can be the user intention that Google has detected for that search term. Are the pages that are ranking different in "type" compared to yours? As an example, are they purely information pages, whereas yours offers an item for sale?

[goodroi]

There are also some techniques to hide what is helping your pages rank. For example a standard backlink search will not uncover 301 redirects and they can pass considerable link power helping a page rank.

[kidder]

I think Tedster nailed it when he said take a look at the competition for each page / term, that is always going to be a major variable.

[epmaniac]

the competition pages which are ranking are not even relevant,... i mean, they are ranking just because of "by accident/ by chance" placement of keyword which i am targetting....

example: my pages are dedicated for red yellow widgets
fully optimized and 100% relevant.

competitive pages are ranking only because 'on page placement' of keywords like:
widgets
red widgets
red balloons
yellow submarine
etc etc
meaning, competitive pages are not even relevant, so how come the competition is trumping me when their pages are not even targetted?

[epmaniac]

you should note that i used to dominate this niche before i messed up 'the on page seo'

now even though i have rectified or even improved on page seo, i can't even trump competition's irrelevant pages

[Rasputin]

epmaniac, I raised this exact question on the google webmaster forums a while ago with no success - but I often see exactly the same thing.

The nature of my site is that I occasionally add several pages about things that are very similar in topic and for very non-competitive terms at the same time (the pages are for little known travel destinations that we have visited and reviewed, so each is unique and original).

By rights all should rank page 1, typically somewhere between position 2 and position 5. In reality some rate high page 1, some rank low page 1, and others rank nowhere at all.

The pages are all published at the same time, share identical internal link profiles, and would be too small to attract significant external links (the parent page containing the links to these pages is the one that would attract external links, so all the child pages should benefit equally.

I have repeated this 'experience' several times, investigated every possible difference I can think of, and now more or less assume that google sometimes 'overlook' pages (perhaps 2 in 10) for reasons I don't understand.

Certainly 'competition' is small, and very similar for each page, and might explain being in position 6 instead of position 2 but I don't think it accounts for the pages being absent from the first 50 results.

[kellyman]

I asked the exact same question on here ages ago after i messed up on my site, and i still 6 months on have stubborn keywords that wont budge whilst others move with the links i propote

The simple answer was Google is not so forgiving when you make mistakes, it takes ages to bring up your authority in the eyes of Google and not a lot to lose that trust.

Just keep building great links and keep doing things right eventually you'll bounce back

[Planet13]

...before i made some changes and messed up the on page seo.

Maybe you can tell us what type of mistakes you made, because not only will it help the group learn from your mistakes, but it also might help us see if we have any thoughts on overcoming those particular mistakes.

Thanks in advance.