Ranking In Google Question

Well I've got a website ranking for a keyword (longtail with 4 words) on the very bottom of the 1st page. The keyword has 131k competitors (with quotes), but most sites ranking on the first page have no PR and very little backlinks.

The #1 ranking site is a PR 3 with 250 backlinks. My site is a PR 2 with 1400 backlinks (and many more pointing to web 2.0 properties that link to my site in random linking). Their site has part of the keyword in their domain and H1 tags, but not the whole thing. My site doesn't have the keyword in the domain or the H1 tags.

I can understand why that site may be beating me as it's a higher PR and has part of the keyword in the domain and H1 tags, but what about the other sites? There's one site that has no PR, 4 backlinks, and no H1, H2, or H3 tags. The description is literally "333333333333" but their domain is the exact keyword.

I understand SEO (or at least I think I do) and I know basically what to do to rank, but I also know that there's hundreds of different factors that can play a role in ranking a website. I realize SEO is an art and there are no guaranteed results as they can vary for each niche and many times each keyword, but any information about this situation will be helpful. By the way, my site has been sitting on the bottom of page 1 for about 3 weeks now while I've continually built different types of backlinks (web 2.0 properties, blog commenting, articles, pyramids, etc).

I know waiting is a big part of SEO, but I would appreciate it if that comment is not mentioned as I will be waiting no matter what happens

Thanks!

Hey Charlie, I don't know what the deal is based on the information you have provided, but if you want to see how your site stacks up against the competition in top 10 and compare the ranking factors that count you might want to consider downloading the trial version of Market Samurai. It's free to try and should probive you with the answers you need.

-Doc

I've heard of Market Samurai, but I thought that was mostly keyword research? So by using it I can compare and take into account all the different ranking factors and see where my site stands?

I'll definitely try it. Thanks

As your man says,

I highly recommend getting something like MS to really gauge your comp, it's a very easy to use, amazingly powerful little app.

I would also say, don't put to much wait on a keywords comp just by using "keyword" in google, I suggest the intitle:"keyword" filter, as it actually tells you how many people are optimizing for that exact keyword, as opposed to how many pages are indexed that have that keyword somewhere in their pages text.

Hope that helps

it can take 1-3 months to see results in the serps.

quality backlinks; high pr, aged, do follow, contextual, one way, links pointing to them etc have a bigger impact on serps than backlinks w/o those factors

keyword in domain is a top factor in ranking. its takes very few backlinks to have a kw domain rank in top10.

Yeah I knew a lot of the factors that went into ranking, but I didn't know how much weight each one had. Like I didn't realize having your keyword in your domain is that essential.

Does it have to be a sole domain or can it be like "keyword.hubpages.com"?

Thanks for the info

charlie3 said:

Yeah I knew a lot of the factors that went into ranking, but I didn't know how much weight each one had. Like I didn't realize having your keyword in your domain is that essential.

Does it have to be a sole domain or can it be like "keyword.hubpages.com"?

Thanks for the info

Click to expand...

Interesting question. Does having a keyworded subdomain still help?

Can you put the keyword in the titles tags or an h1? How's your keyword density? Don't go overboard but make sure your page is super-relevant. As for backlinks, I usually figure I have to be patient for 3 months to really see results.

g reads left to right. and subdomain rank less than domains.
A subdomain MIGHT rank less than domain.com/keyword
because subdomains are seen as different domain so
it has to build juice on its own, where domain.com/keyword
can share the juice of the other pages within the site.
does that make sense?

ranking in order of effectiveness..

keyword.com is 1
keyword-random word.com 2
randomword-keyword.com 3
keyword.yourdomain.com 4
yourdomain.com/keyword 5

the backlinks need to be built from the keyworded url page and link to the home page in order to drive the link juice forward.

theconfidenceman said:

g reads left to right. and subdomain rank less than domains.
A subdomain MIGHT rank less than domain.com/keyword
because subdomains are seen as different domain so
it has to build juice on its own, where domain.com/keyword
can share the juice of the other pages within the site.
does that make sense?

ranking in order of effectiveness..

keyword.com is 1
keyword-random word.com 2
randomword-keyword.com 3
keyword.yourdomain.com 4
yourdomain.com/keyword 5

the backlinks need to be built from the keyworded url page and link to the home page in order to drive the link juice forward.

Click to expand...

That first part was a little confusing to understand, but when you wrote them in the order of effectiveness that really helped me understand. I know there's no real feasible answer to this, but what is the difference between maybe the 1st and 4th domains? A minor difference or a HUGE difference in terms of ranking?

Thanks

charlie3 said:

That first part was a little confusing to understand, but when you wrote them in the order of effectiveness that really helped me understand. I know there's no real feasible answer to this, but what is the difference between maybe the 1st and 4th domains? A minor difference or a HUGE difference in terms of ranking?

Thanks

Click to expand...

By having an exact match domain the person has a biiiig advantage over you. I would say having an exact match domain counts as about an extra 50 high authority backlinks to his site but it all depends on how good his website is.

If you want you can hit me up with a pm and I'll take a look at your keyword and domain to make things easier

two words:domain age

did you check their ages?

charlie3 said:

That first part was a little confusing to understand, but when you wrote them in the order of effectiveness that really helped me understand. I know there's no real feasible answer to this, but what is the difference between maybe the 1st and 4th domains? A minor difference or a HUGE difference in terms of ranking?

Thanks

Click to expand...

huge difference. keyword.com is most relevant.
if you dont have that, then add keyword.domain.com
and/or domain.com/keyword.

think about it. which is more relevant to widgets

widgets.com

or

parts.com/widgets

peace

Thanks for the replies. There's a lot of information that goes into SEO, but I hope that I will eventually be able to learn all the small details and tips to get a good ranking.

FYI just got Market Samurai here on BHW and it really is GREAT! I had MNF and it worked alright, but MS is being really helpful right now.

I can't get Market Samurai to work.. it launches alright, but when I analyze keywords.. it only throws out competition information and no traffic information. Any advice guys? Can you share a link here for the version that works for you? Thanks!