Google Gone Mad or Its Some kind of BlackHat ?

[WildHawk]

I was browsing google.co.in and searched for "Mussoorie Hotels" without quote and came across the attached result! the website sitting on #9 is sitting with a wrong page .. i.e a Hotel Page of other place .. i.e nainital

can someone tell me is there something wrong with google or the guy is using some blackhat technique for his/her website ??

M trying to rank for the keyword "mussoorie hotels" from past 4-5 months Still no luck even in top 5 pages :()

mussoorie-hotels.jpg

[InkCartridgesFast]

I love how everyone thinks people use blackhat to get ranked above other people. Anyways he probably just has backlinks for your phrase, thus Google have ranked him there.

[WildHawk]

m seeing this page since today morning till last night it was all fine! and this page was not even in top 50 for this keyword!

[DeptAgency]

Hi wildhawk,

All websites on the first page for this query have quite a high PA and DA. They have thousands of backlinks (probably payed for them considering the anchor texts) and are also ´quite relevant´ for the search query.

The basis is this:

You rank based on your on-page optimization (relevance) and off-page optimization (importance). You may have a page that is far more optimized for a specific keyword and thus are also more relevant. That doesn't mean you outperform the 1-10 results on the combined result of relevance + importance.

Long story short: My guess is that you need to work on your linkprofile.

I wish you all the best and keep in mind that you are trying to compete in an extremely competitive market.

Sven Witteveen
Expand Online

[DeptAgency]

Hi Jack,

All though I do agree with you in general, I think this case is slightly different:

1. According to opensiteexplorer.org there are no backlinks to this page containing the word mussoorie.
2. The linkprofile of this page looks very unnatural (almost no branded/url anchors and all are very nice search queries). It is thus very likely that they purchased these links (i.e.use black hat SEO).

Greets,

Sven Witteveen
Expand Online

[RyanKent]

This seems like a simple case of the wrong page appearing in search results. The correct page is likely: http://www.travelmasti.com/mussoorie.htm

The site has a DA of 60 and at a glance seems legitimate. If you perform a Google.co.in search for "http://www.travelmasti.com/mussoorie.htm" then the URL http://www.travelmasti.com/nainital.htm appears as the first result.

There are several ways this issue can occur and it seems unlikely the site intentionally caused this to happen. The page could have been 301 redirected. The page could have had a canonical tag which was removed. The site is very poorly coded with hundreds of coding errors (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.travelmasti.com%2Fnainital.htm&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0)

One of the coding errors could be the problem.

This is a case of a legitimate site ranking for a term it should rank for, but the wrong page is being offered.

[InkCartridgesFast]

I never went that far to check that but I believe you.

[WildHawk]

@Ryan Kent - I've already checked it twice but neither the page is 301 nor its is using canonical, All results were fine till friday I guess and travelmasti.com/mussoorie.htm was ranking instead of travelmasti.com/nainital.htm for the term mussoorie hotels,

Also, I'll be great full if you can remove the live link from your post

My website with a different URL was thrown on 3rd page last month which was ranking in Top #3 from past 2 years m still not sure whats going on, m sure that my website is safe and is not affected with panda or penguine!

But if someone can tell me the exact reason why nainital page is ranking instead of mussoorie will be greatful as it might help me to get my rank back!

[RyanKent]

But if someone can tell me the exact reason why nainital page is ranking instead of mussoorie will be greatful as it might help me to get my rank back!

I am not sure what other words can be shared to help you better understand the situation.

The travelmasti website has legitimately earned a first page spot for their website. For an unknown reason, the wrong URL is presently showing. You are correct right now there is not a 301 in place. The current page does not show a canonical tag either. It is possible there was a 301 or canonical and it has been removed. It is more likely there is some other issue causing this confusion.

My expectation is Google will resolve the issue soon replace the currently result once they index the /mussoorie.htm page.

The recommended approach for improving your site's rankings is always to focus on your site. Even if you were to get this result removed from Google's index, the improvement to your site is insignificant.