Low PA but still ranking no.1??

[RobSchofield]

Can anybody shed some light on this. A competitor is ranking no.1 for the keyword "storage" which is a very competitive keyword in our industry. There url is www.publicselfstorage.com.au

When using Site Explorer, l can see that they have a very low PA, low external following links etc compared to the companies ranking 2 and 3.

http://www.storageking.com.au/melbourne.html

http://www.kss.com.au/

How are they still managing to rank no.1?

[FedeEinhorn]

You will be able to find that on almost every niche. Google just doesn't follow the same numbers as SEOMoz. What are they doing they to rank is the real question. Apparently no black-hat, maybe content? who knows...

Usually, you can find more consistent results (compared to SEOMoz data) on Bing.

[IOSC]

The problem with a straight up link analysis is that there are other metrics involved in the equation.  Maybe they have great engagement metrics...there is something about the site that makes it look "better" than the other two you listed...maybe it's the bright colors? the first thing you see are "10% Off", "Free", "save $$S" etc.

[MichaelYork]

Hi Robert,

I believe there are some specifically relevant adjustments in the AU search engines which are throwing up very low authority sites which makes me believe the optimsation profiles of the competitor's could be over saturated either on page or linking profiles etc.

Kennard's and Storage King both have large linking profiles.

Here is another example for SEO Brisbane:

http://www.google.com/search?gs_rn=14&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=sila&cp=8&gs_id=10&xhr=t&q=seo+brisbane&pf=p&client=safari&rls=en&sclient=psy-ab&oq=seo+bris&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.47008514,d.aGc&biw=1300&bih=569

[MoosaHemani]

Hello Robert,

I just did the quick comparison of the three websites that you have mentioned and in my opinion the link profile of all the 3 websites are clean and properly optimized (no sign of over or spam optimization)

There can be two reasons why this is happening

1. On-Page Issues

There can be a huge possibility that the on-page is over saturated for two websites as compare to the one that contain less DA although in my quick look this didn’t seems to be the problem!

2. Penguin 2.0 Adjustment

If this SERP setting for this keyword is just few days old that this can be the penguin 2.0 settlement that launched around few days ago! If this is the case then it will fix within the next few days once the things will get settle down.

Not really sure about anything but I have shared what I believe can be the case!

[RobSchofield]

Thank you Fedrico

[RobSchofield]

thank you jeff

[RobSchofield]

Thank you for that Michael

[RobSchofield]

thank you Moosa