Site #2 beats site #1 in every aspect?

[darrenspeed]

Hey guys, loving SEOMoz so far and will definitely continue my subscription after the free trial.

I have a question however, which I am really confused about.

When researching my primary keyword, I have found that the second ranked site beats the top site in every single aspect, apart from domain age, which is almost 6 years for the top one and 6 months for the second.

When I say every single aspect, I mean everything. More authority for the page and domain, more links, more anchor text links, more authoritive links, more social signals, more relevant links, better domain (although second ranked site is a .net), better MozRank, better MozTrust etc....

I have noticed though, that in the UK SERPs, those sites are switched, so #2 is actually #1.

Could it be that the US SERPs just haven't updated yet, or am I missing something completely different.

[sesertin]

It is definately due to the young domain. The younger one has just quit the sandbox period and going upwards while the older one has yet gained trust in google's eyes so google will have it's time to collect user data to be sure that it is better from a user aspect to switch those rankings.

If a better site could beat another one in the moment of becoming better I would be very happy, I wouldn't have to wait so much to harvest the fruits of my efforts.

[darrenspeed]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply.

I did think about the domain, but couldn't believe that the domain age alone would make it rank stronger, because the #2 site has a tons more of everything.

Luckily I just bought a 2 year old domain to compete for this keyword, although I hear that the domain age is weakened when it exchanges hands.

Thanks again.

[BrandonShoupe]

@darrenspeed, when you listed the factors where #2 dominates #1, you didn't mention anything about on-page content. Consider this scenario:

Google actually jumps the current #2 to the #1 spot, but Google also notices that well over half the people that visit the site go back to Google within 20 seconds and perform the exact same search. This would signal to Google that the page's content doesn't fully satisfy its users. So it goes back to putting the other page on top, and notices that only 25% of the visitors go back and perform another search for the same keyword. Therefore Google waves it's magic wand and says, "yea, verily I declare #1 to be better than #2."

Other than the domain age, it is the only other plausible explanation I can come up with. Compare the content of both pages and get back to us. I'll be interested to see if it is a domain age issue, content issue, or possibly something else.

[darrenspeed]

Sorry that I forgot to mention this.

Both sites have A grade according to Moz.

Both sites are 1 page sites, no inner pages apart from the About and Contact obviously, however the #1 site uses adsense whilst #2 does not.

Maybe the bounce rate of these sites also play an important factor, but I would consider both of them, to be quite poor.

[Dekoda_Jones]

More relevant links is an interesting concept and probably where the problem lies.  Which links are Google counting and what is the anchor text? and does the link profile look natural?

In my experience, not ranking for a certain keyword usually comes down to needing more links with a mixture of exact and partial match anchor text from a variety of sources.  Try investing in some better web directories like BOTW, get a couple of blogs to write about you and release a PRweb press release with sufficient linking.

Internally you may also want to write a few more articles on that specific keyword and link them all through to the central page, thus funneling relevant link juice internally as well as externally.

Let me know how you go

[RobertFisher]

Darrenspeed

I think if you take both Brandon and Joshua you will likely have your answer. Brandon went where I went when I first saw the question. Are you giving the searcher the info they are looking for in a way that makes them want to keep reading? When I read Joshua's response I had to say he, too, was correct. 
There have been many times when I kept telling myself how we were beating a competitor and caused myself to miss the flaws in our site. So, Forget who is first and whether or not they are dating Larry Page, focus on getting your page to perfect or flawless. Even if the page is about Chinese Gambling Sex Herbs, put in an info graph and list the top three myths about Gambling Sex Herbs. Then make sure you have spot on Title Tags, H1-H2, alt text, great linking program, quality backlinks, etc.
As to domain age, there is the place where that will have an effect...for a very short time frame. If a new domain comes out with great content, gets lots of traffic, social, and back links, domain age will not over weigh the other factors for ranking.

[Dr-Pete]

When you're looking at 200+ ranking factor, there's a lot we can't account for even across all of our metrics. A few possibilities:

(1) The #2 site's links are being devalued, for some reason, due to quality issues.

(2) There are geo-targeting signals out of whack or focused outside of the US market. If the site is ranking #1 on Google.co.uk and has a clear UK connection, that could lower it's value on Google.com slightly. It's not the kiss of death, but it can make a difference.

(3) The #1 (currently on Google.com) site has recent activity that we're not aware of yet (link-building, especially).

(4) As Joshua said, #1 could be targeting inbound anchor text better.

(5) As Brandon said, #1 may have an advantage on user signals.

I don't think that Google currently "sandboxes" new sites in they way they may have once. What I think we're seeing is a grace period where new sites get a chance to rank while Google evaluates their link profile. If, after a couple of months, those links look spammy, the site may drop. In most cases I've seen, though, that's not a #1 vs. #2 sort of thing.