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Even if nothing is stopping Google from finding your page, you still need to “prove†to them that it deserves to rank.
4. You do not have enough high-quality backlinks
Even if nothing is stopping Google from finding your page, you still need to “prove†to them that it deserves to rank.
While there are hundreds of factors at play in Googles algorithm, the number of backlinks from unique websites to a page seems to be a strong one. Weve found this time and time again in correlation studies.
If the web pages ranking above you have way more backlinks, then this could be part of the reason youre not showing up in Google.
To see the number of unique websites (referring domains) linking to your page, paste your URL into Site Explorer or our free backlink checker.
A QUICK REMINDER…
Google ranks web pages, not websites. While it may be the case that you want to rank your homepage for a specific keyword, its important to make sure to look at the number of referring domains to that page, not your site as a whole.
Next, go to Keywords Explorer, search for your target keyword, then scroll down to the SERP overview. Here, youll see the current top-ranking pages and SEO metrics for each of them.
Skim the “Domains†column to see how many unique websites link to each page.
Consider building more backlinks if your page falls short.
FURTHER READING
5. Your page is lacking “authorityâ€
Googles ranking algorithm is based on something called PageRank, which essentially counts backlinks and internal links as votes.
SIDENOTE.
That is a slightly oversimplified explanation of PageRank. Learn more in our full PageRank guide.Some SEOs see PageRank as old news, but Google confirmed that it was still a critical factor in their ranking algorithm in 2017:
Unfortunately, Google discontinued their public PageRank scores a few years ago. Now, its not possible to see how the PR of your page stacks up against top-ranking pages.
Luckily, we at Connekt Teacher have a metric based on similar principles called URL Rating (UR).
Like PageRank, this takes into account internal links and backlinks, and we have found that it correlates with search traffic.
UR runs on a scale from 0–100. High UR pages have more “authority†than low UR pages.
To check the URL Rating of any page on your site, paste the URL into Site Explorer or our free backlink checker.
Compare that to the UR of the top-ranking pages for your target keyword using the “SERP overview†in Keywords Explorer.
If the top-ranking pages have a much higher UR score than yours, it might be a sign that your lack of “link authority†is holding you back.
There are two ways to boost the authority of a web page:
Generally speaking, the former is harder than the latter—especially if you want to rank a sales page.
For that reason, adding some relevant internal links to your page is often the best starting point.
FURTHER READING
6. Your website is lacking “authorityâ€
Google continues to give mixed signals about whether site authority is a ranking factor.
In this tweet, Googles Gary Ilyes says theres no such thing:
But in this interview, Googles John Mueller says they have metrics that “map into similar things.â€
We studied the relationship between rankings and Domain Rating (our website authority metric) and found a small positive correlation between the two:
SIDENOTE.
The correlation here is much weaker than that of referring domains or page-level authority. Also, correlation ≠causation. That said, it seems that site authority plays a more significant role in the rankings for some keywords than others.
Take a look at the top-ranking pages for keyword “designer dressesâ€:
The average and median DR of the top 5 pages is 82, and the weakest site has a DR of 77.
Given that DR runs on a scale from 0–100, this is an extremely high average. A less authoritative site would probably struggle to rank for this keyword.
SIDENOTE.
The fact that some queries have only high-authority pages ranking in the top 10 isnt necessarily proof that “website authority†is a ranking factor. It might be that for certain queries, Google knows people want results from trustworthy, well-known brands. Its more of a mixed bag for the keyword, “best coffee machine.â€
There are pages from both high and low-authority sites in the top 5.
To check the “authority†of your website, paste the domain into Connekt Teacher Site Explorer on our free website authority checker.
Compare this to the DR scores of top-ranking sites for your target keyword. That should give you a good idea as to whether the authority of your website may be preventing you from ranking for your desired keywords in Google.
PRO TIP
Even if some pages above you are from high DR sites, you may still be able to outrank them. How? By building more backlinks and “link authority†at the page level. After all, Google ranks web pages, not websites.
You can see an example of this for the keyword “bitcoin mining calculator.â€
The page ranking in position #4 is on a lower DR site than most that it outranks.
One of the reasons the page is seemingly able to outrank them is because it has a high number of backlinks from unique websites and more “authority.â€
7. Your web page doesnt align with “search intentâ€
Google aims to rank the most useful and relevant results for each query.
Thats why its essential to align your content with what searchers expect and want to see. This is known as search intent.
Lets say that youre American Express and you want this page to show up in Google for the term “best credit cardâ€:
If we look at the top-ranking results for this term in Keywords Explorer, these are the metrics for the strongest page in the top five:
Looking in Site Explorer, its clear that American Expresss page beats this page (and all other top-ranking results) on those fronts. But still, it doesnt even rank in the top 100 results.
Why? Because the page doesnt align with what searchers want to see.
If we look more closely at the top-ranking pages for “best credit card,†we see that theyre all lists of the best cards from different banks and providers. Like this one:
The page from American Express is more of a sales page.
Google knows people do not want a sales page when searching for this query, so it doesnt rank them.
8. You have duplicate content issues
Duplicate content is when the same or similar web page is accessible at different URLs.
Google tends not to index duplicate content because it takes up unnecessary space in their index—a bit like having two copies of the same book on your bookshelf.
Instead, it usually only indexes the version that you set as the canonical.
If no canonical is set, Google attempts to identify the best version of the page to index itself.
Unfortunately, Googles ability to identify duplicate pages without non-self-referencing canonicals is not perfect.
Take a look at these two pages on Buffer.com:
Both are indexed, despite them being almost identical.
This causes issues because the “authority†of one page is split between two URLs. The first URL has backlinks from 115 referring domains (unique websites), and the second links from 140.
Given that one of these pages ranks in position #22 for its target keyword, it would probably rank higher if the “backlink authority†from both URLs were consolidated.
To find duplicate content issues on your website, run a crawl using Connekt Teacher Site Audit, then go to the “Content quality†report. Look for clusters of duplicate and near-duplicate pages without canonicals.
Fix these issues by redirecting or canonicalizing the duplicates.
9. You have a Google penalty
Having a Google penalty is the least likely reason for not showing up on Google. But it is a possibility.
There are two types of Google penalties.
SIDENOTE.
To be accurate, algorithmic penalties are not penalties, they are filters.Luckily, manual penalties are extremely rare. Youre unlikely to get one unless you have done something drastically wrong. Google also usually alerts you about them via the “Manual penalties†tab in Search Console.
If there is no warning in there, then you probably dont have a manual penalty.
Unfortunately, Google doesnt tell you if your site is being filtered algorithmically—and this can be quite challenging to identify.
If you suspect an algorithmic penalty due to a recent significant drop in organic traffic, your first course of action should be to check whether that drop coincided with a known or suspected Google algorithm update.
Panguin is a useful tool for this. It shows known algorithm change dates over your Google Analytics traffic to make it easy to spot issues.
If you still suspect your site has been filtered or penalized at this point, talk to an expert before taking any potentially catastrophic actions like disavowing links.
Final thoughts
Ranking in Google is like playing a video game.
If you have technical issues like a broken controller, then you are never going to win no matter how hard you try. Its the same with your website. You need to fix severe technical problems like rogue “noindex†meta tags and crawl blocks before playing the game.
From there, its critical to understand the level you are playing at and the strength of your opponents. Some levels are easy because your opponents are weak. Others are difficult because they are strong.
You may need to level-up by building backlinks and “authority†before taking on stronger ones.
If your are struggling to beat your opponents because they are too strong, play an easier level.
You can do this by targeting lower-competition keywords. Of course, one way to find these is by filtering for low-difficulty keywords in Keywords Explorer.
Just remember that its often worth making an effort to complete difficult levels because unlocking that achievement can be a game-changer for your business.
Got questions? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
