Pages that appear in search results don't relate to keywords

[onlinesource]

I have written several posts about my site. One of them explained about possible issues with duplicate content - [webmasterworld.com...] -but before I go down the road of rewriting several hundred pages, I wanted to ask about another problems that may or may not relate to my ranking. Potentially bigger problems.

I just noticed this past week that Google isn't displaying the correct pages on my site in search results! For instance, let's say that I operating a online clothing shop and I want to rank for "blue t-shirts" and I have a product page that is optimized for it at mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts where "blue t-shirts" is listed in the title tag, meta description, keyboard list, body of the page, etc. The page was setup for "blue t-shirts".

So, I type in "blue t-shirts" in Google and my site does shows up on page 5 to 7. That isn't where I'd like to rank for any top keyboard, but it's something. The problem is, the page that SHOULD come up isn't coming up. Instead of the mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts page, I'm getting my company's disclaimer page which talks about our limitations as a business. The page may mention the "blue t-shirts" keyboard in passing by stating something like "we offer many great products such as blue t-shirts..." n it's body but it certainly wouldn't be the most appropriate page for that keyboard at least not compared to mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts!

So the way I see it, no wonder thinks my site is worthy of page 5 to 7 for the "blue t-shirts" keyword, because it isn't even associating the best page with the right keyword.

I've heard of issues similar to this with people, but it is usual results that are much closer. Like I newspaper company that has two articles, one titled "Great apple pie recipe" and another titled "the cost of apples is going up" and it wants one page to rank for "apples" over another. I get the similarities there. BUT I mean, I am comparing a disclaimer page to a product page geared to the exact keyboard.

It doesn't get end there either, other keywords show the most inappropriate pages too. An example, would be the socks page appearing for shoes or the underwear page appearing for belts. :)

All of this has make me want to dig deeper and deeper... into my problems. I also noticed a few days ago that when I type in my domain in Google, my site appears but the snippet doesn't even relate my company. This has to hurt more than help SEO, right? Basically it's pulling some random text on my home page about customer support. The line on the site basically reads, "Our support staff is here to assist you 24/7, please call now". It's just a random line added to the end of the homepage's welcome text. BUT that is my snippet! My snippet isn't my meta description which relates much better to my services (ie: "Are you looking for the best in clothing? We offer comfortable socks, shoes, tshirts and more!") <--- that is what I would like to display, so why is Google gravitating towards some stuff about customer support? It's like it's ignoring all of the rich SEO text on my site and saying, "no thanks, we're just going to concentrate on stuff that has nothing to do with you!".

I really feel like my site isn't optimized , but more than that it isn't laid out correctly and Google doesn't even know what it is looking for.

I also played around with Data Marker today in Google Webmaster Tools and it would ask me to mark the title, the author, etc of pages. Once I showed a few examples, I would try to be done and GWT says: Unfortunately, the pattern of data on this site cannot be understood. Isn't this Google saying, "We can't figure out your site, buddy?"

Before I focus on rewriting content, do you guys think it would be wise for somebody to go through my cart and check it's structure, make sure it's even properly formatted for SEO? The meta tags look good to me, but they seem to be getting ignored.

[rish3]

Instead of the mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts page, I'm getting my company's disclaimer page which talks about our limitations as a business.

This is often a sign of a page specific penalty and/or filter. (keyword stuffing, duplicate content on another domain, too many low quality links with that keyword, etc)

[Wilburforce]

@onlinesource

What provides your site's menu and structure?

Your menu and internal links need to provide structure and hierarchy that make sense to Googlebot, and from what you say it appears that they do not. Massive css menus can have this effect.

Don't focus on "SEO", so much as organising your content logically. It should make sense to a human, as well as to a bot.

Also have a look at page layout using e.g. W3C's Semantic Data Extractor:

[w3.org ]

What rish3 says may apply, but you need to make sure there is a clear logical path within the site to whatever your visitor is looking for (clothing/shirts/t-shirts/blue-t-shirts...). If I am in Bedding I should be able to see a menu/link to Clothing, but if I can also see a link to blue-t-shirts from there (or if googlebot can see it, even if it only becomes visible to a human on mouseover) then the site structure may be impossible for a bot to follow.

[aristotle]

I'm getting my company's disclaimer page

If you put a noindex tag on this page, Google will take it out of their search results

[RedBar]

but more than that it isn't laid out correctly and Google doesn't even know what it is looking for.

It doesn't look for anything, it has to be presented correctly for it to be displayed in the results as a valid query that matches up to the search.

Do not write about "widget" products on "about" pages or "whatever" pages, keep product pages for their own specific/personalised description pages.

[netmeg]

For instance, let's say that I operating a online clothing shop and I want to rank for "blue t-shirts" and I have a product page that is optimized for it at mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts where "blue t-shirts" is listed in the title tag, meta description, keyboard list, body of the page, etc. The page was setup for "blue t-shirts".

Do you also have pages for red t-shirts, yellow t-shirts, green t-shirts that are essentially the same page except for a different color? A large quantity of product pages that are essentially the same except for one or two aspects (size, color) can cause issues like this.

[Ralph_Slate]

I recently experienced this. The cause was that my 'bot detection tool had recently blocked the GoogleBot, and Google seems to have removed the URL from their index. When people searched for that thing, a completely different page from my site came up.

I went into the "fetch as Google" page, resubmitted the URL that had been removed, and within a minute, it was fixed.

[onlinesource]

@netmeg. A lot of the pages are somewhat similar, as similar as any business would be that specializes in a specific niche like colored clothing. Still, why the disclaimer page? Why not the shipping page or the about us page. If it's going to just pull any page regardless of it's meta descriptions or content, then what gives?

@Wilburforce -- [w3.org...] - do I simply put in my complete url like mysite.tld.com/blue-tshirts.

I've tried it with and without www like [.......]

It doesn't seem to work. Then again, not sure what exactly this displays.

[edited by: onlinesource at 12:24 am (utc) on Feb 27, 2015]

[onlinesource]

aristotle, I don't care if the disclaimer page shows up in search results. I'm not trying to hide the page. I am concerned with the fact that Google seems to find THAT page more acceptable for "blue t-shirts" than an actual page about blue t-shirts.

I think @Wilburforce is right and the entire page, menus and all with the term "blue t-shirt" is being scanned on every page, so keywords and terms are being picked up everywhere rather than on specific destinations.

Now I just need to figure out how to fix this. :)

[netmeg]

A lot of the pages are somewhat similar, as similar as any business would be that specializes in a specific niche like colored clothing.

But there are different ways of displaying them. Either one to a page (creates a lot of near duplicate content if the products aren't unique enough) or grouped (more than one product on a single page - like parts for a particular item, or a kit or package deal) or configurable, with dropdowns for color and size. Where it makes sense, I'm moving most of my ecommerce clients towards grouped or configurable for products that are very similar. Better user experience, better for search engines.

[onlinesource]

Where it makes sense, I'm moving most of my ecommerce clients towards grouped or configurable for products that are very similar. Better user experience, better for search engines.

You mean like a product called t-shirts and a drop down: blue, red, orange? I know what you mean. The issue is, what if you really want to rank for "blue t-shirts", then IMO it's better to have a page called /blue-tshirts. I have seen sites do both approaches and have had mixed results.

[netmeg]

The issue is, what if you really want to rank for "blue t-shirts", then IMO it's better to have a page called /blue-tshirts.

Except your blue t-shirt page isn't. But okay. Good luck to you.