I've gone from #3 to #6 today for keyword "hgh." Wikepedia is in the top two spots. I have more backlinks than anyone else. I have more pages than anyone else and I'm adding one new page every week. I've got plenty of Directory listings and one way links coming into me. My PR is equal or higher than everyone else. I think I should be #1. Now I'm back to #6 and what really galls me is that a new site just came out of nowhere and popped in front of me. PR0, very few backlinks, and it's a personal blog. Can anyone respond to what's going on here? Much appreciated! Michael
There are more factors than just backlinks, and relevant backlinks from authority sites are much more important, but google certainly gives priority to "trusted sites" and non-commerical sites like wikipedia - so it can require a lot more work, and may never happen. You'll never have more quality links than wikipedia. Google changes it's algorithm constantly- it would be very unusual for a commercial site to maintain a #1 ranking for such a competitive keyword. Fresh content also plays an important role - affiliate links can also be a negative. PR, in itself, plays little, if any role in rankings. I have competitive keywords where I have ranked in the top 3 for the majority of the last 5 years - but it's not uncommon to drop out of the first 200 for a period of time, only to return without any changes. If commercial sites could always remain #1, there would be a lot less purchasing of adwords.
Google is puzzling. If any of us knew their exact algo we'd be filthy rich! I've had very similar results with one of my sites recently. I feel I'm the leading site for that keyword - yet google keeps bumping me. Hang in there.
Yes, I'm 21st Century. Mjewel, I'm not sure you read my post all the way through. I know I can't compete with wikepedia, I was addressing all the others. Especially, how does a blog with PR0, few backlinks, few pages, even get on the first page? Thanks, Michael
If you do a search in yahoo you will see that hghlook.com has about 3000 inlinks and yours has 7000. Its strange that a domain only registered in september can rank in the top 10 for this keyword. Smells fishy. Having looked at your site I would say you should have HGH another 1 or 2 times in your meta description tag and increase the keyword density of your text. For the visible text its at 2.85% and you should try and icrease it to 4-5%. Also which is the real homepage? Google has domain.com in its cache but most of your homepage links go to domain.com/index.htm. Do you have a redirect set up?
I mentioned wikipedia because you said you should be #1. Forget about PR, it doesn't matter (as you are seeing). The google algorithm likely has 100 different factors to determine its rankings - each with a different weight. Relevant backlinks are a very important part of the algorithm, but there are many other factors. I don't know what blog is outranking you, but I'll bet they have fresh content being added on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Google sees this as a site that could have more current information (which may or not be true, it's a robot) - and will give it extra points. You can have a number one ranking with a single page, so having more pages isn't going to automatically give you a higher ranking. Keyword density is another factor. What google considers "ideal" one day (say 3.4%) can trip a spam filter when they lower it to 3.3%, etc. Running out and adding fresh content to your site would help the "fresh content" score, but maybe it will affect another part of the algorithm and wind up ranking you even lower. Never respond to daily, or even weekly shifts in rankings. Google has many different data centers, and you might be ranking #3 on some and #6 on others. The location of your host also plays a role. Same with the age of the domain, or a DMOZ listing. I don't even attempt any on site changes with a ranking drop for at least 3-4 weeks - and 8 of 10 times, they bounce back. Getting more relevant backlinks is never going to hurt you (not talking about paid links). In short, no one can tell you other than google. My educated guess for the blog is "fresh content" that has the right on page factors google is looking for at this moment. Just be careful about rushing to make changes - often you'll wind up with worse results (especially when you are in the top six for a competitive keyword) - there are thousands of other sites behind you waiting to take your spot.
I've seen many new sites debut at a higher position than is deserved, in my opinion. It used to upset me terribly to know all the work I put into my site, and along comes a site that was put together in a few days. It doesn't upset me....much....grrrr.. anymore, because I've seen that upstarts are usually completely off the charts in a short while. This constantly happens. I update a page, see a search engine jump, then either a fast decline, gradual decline, and sometimes...an improvement If competition is strong, expect to see your positions go up and down. To constantly remain in the top 10, you are doing something right.
I don't have a redirect set up. How do I do that? Your comments were helpful. Before the blog site suddenly appeared, everyone in the top ten had a lower keyword ratio than me. I was considering lowering it. Now you are recommending that I raise it so I'm a little nervous. Thanks for the help! Michael
The domain.com and domain.com/index.htm both have a PR of 5 which usually means there is some sort of redirect. I'm not sure how to get to the bottom of it you should post a thread in the DP google forum. It could even be that google has given 2 pages a PR5 when it should have been just 1 page with a higher PR . In regards to the keyword density, I think increasing it in the descriptions meta tag and visible text won't do any harm at all. Just increase it to 4% and takle it from there. EternalHGH has a visible density of 7.7%. Good luck and feel free to update this thread when your ranking changes