Optimized Page Replaced By Home Page In Serps?

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

I have a page called blue-widgets.html that was (obviously) optimized for the keyword "blue widgets".

It was ranking #10 in the organic SERPs

It seems to have been replaced sometime over the last day or two in the SERPS by my home page. My home page has the following as the title:

Blue Widgets and Other Stuff From The Widget Emporium

(obviously, I am changing some of the words so as not to spam this forum)

Do you think this is likely just to be a temporary glitch? Or is this a sign of Penguin / Over-optimization?

I haven't built many / any external links to the blue-widgets.html page, however, I do have many INTERNAL links that might be optimized for the term blue widgets pointing at the blue-widgets.html page.

the home page is NOT optimized for the keywords "blue widgets" and most (if not all) external backlinks would have the domain name in the anchor text (something along the lines of mywidgetemporium.com)

(BTW: That blue-widgets.html page still seems to rank well for the phrase "blue widgets meanings" so I am not sure what this is a sign of.)

Thanks in advance.

[Robert Charlton]

This could mean a lot of things, but I'll take a stab at something that comes to mind because of issues you've posted about here...

You've posted a lot of times in previous threads about Google ranking your pages as information pages, whereas you wanted visitors to buy from you...

What To Do? Monetize Versus SEO
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4319384.htm [webmasterworld.com]

When Should You Remove Information Section From Ecommerce Site?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4419155.htm [webmasterworld.com]

etc

Most recently, in this thread...

Panda Resulted In Lower Traffic, But Increased Page Views
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4444107.htm [webmasterworld.com]

...you mention something else about your traffic...

However, the total number of page views is UP around 3% compared to the month prior, due to the fact that (if google analytics can be trusted*), pages per visit is UP NEARLY 50%

It might be that Google felt your site as a whole deserved to rank, but it wasn't getting a distinct enough signal from your blue-widgets.html page about what kind of visitors liked your site. It could be that Google is now trying to calibrate that.

It may even be that the home page had been getting test traffic to the home page, however Google might have done this, which might have accounted for the increase in page views.

It's also very possible that this shift may not be about your site specifically, but just how Google optimizes its user experience and how they've found, in situations whose patterns match yours that they can increase visitor stickiness.

I'm guessing, that after this change, Google will further be testing your site (and sites that fit the pattern they see in your site) for user engagement, and will combine patterns they see on many sites... including yours... to further calibrate what they do. It's likely they only test a few factors at a time, so it's a long, slow process.

I would wait for a while for things to settle before making changes, but until then try to figure out how to best use the home page to drive visitors to most appropriate content. It may well be that your content is good, but that your overall design and navigation isn't producing the effect you'd like.

If your product had a long buying cycle, for example, you might want to split up content in such a way that content articles are somewhat distinct from sales pages. At least now (and I take this from a history of your previous posts), you may not be so afraid of breaking up the page and losing your information rankings.

The ongoing tricky aspect of this, though, is how to structure your informational content and your sales pages in parallel so that they help each other. Depending on the site, of course, you try to get links to your informational content and then link to your sales content. Your navigation has to lead to both. By ranking your home page rather than a page that wasn't converting, Google has perhaps liberated you to do this.

[Planet13]

Thank you, Robert:

I think these two statements may apply, and shed light on areas to explore:

...in situations whose patterns match yours that they can increase visitor stickiness.

By ranking your home page rather than a page that wasn't converting, Google has perhaps liberated you to do this.

Looking at analytics data, it could be interpreted that google had been, for some time beforehand, "testing" traffic for the keywords "blue widgets" to the home page (in addition to much of it going to the blue-widgets.html page).

And IN GENERAL, the home page user metrics (when it is a landing page) are better than the user metrics of the blue-widgets.html page (when it is a landing page as well).

So this might be a continued test - either short term or long term.

In my particular situation, I may have complicated things. Back in January I merged another page (meanings-of-blue-widgets.html) into the blue-widgets.html page, with an appropriate 301 redirect from the meanings-of-blue-widgets.html to the blue-widgets.html

This may have sent mixed signals about the precise content of the page.

Oddly enough, I did this to AVOID Panda, because they were my two most popular pages and I was afraid there might have been too much overlap between the two pages.

I made the change on January 6th of this year, and almost immediately, traffic to my site increased significantly. (My unique page views from January 7th - one day after the change - to January 27th, were 45% HIGHER than the previous three week period leading up to January 6th).

There might have been other factors for the increase, but I thought that merging two pages that google MIGHT have considered too similar was a good way to ward off Panda.

Then came March 23rd and I was, indeed, hit by Panda (although i saw declines in traffic starting around February 24th of this year - the one year Panda anniversary, if memory serves).

~~~~~~

So all in all, can we say that this does NOT seem consistent with Penguin, and indeed seems like more of an isolated case? I don't see other reports on the forum of people having their interior pages "replaced" in the SERPs by their home pages.

[realmaverick]

Google are releasing so many updates, to make it almost impossible to know which update has hit us and what the perceived issue is.

But it would seem this isn't related to Penguin. Bloody Penguin, Panda... pfft more like rat!

[Planet13]

@ realmaverick

Google are releasing so many updates, to make it almost impossible to know which update has hit us and what the perceived issue is.

You are correct about that.

A strange thing I just noticed. When looking at the SERPs using AOL (which I understand doesn't use the full set of google results, but at least it doesn't use personalization), I see that my home page has MOVED UP three spots in the SERPs (from #10 to #7) for the keyword "blue widgets".

For the singular version of the word (blue widget) I am currently ranking 24 in AOL, down from where I used to be around #11.

_{I really don't know why I am trying to compete for this keyword; There is a TON of competition from Amazon, ebay, and adwords competitors and it is hardly a "money" keyword. I guess I just love banging my head against a wall...}